It was the 80s. A decade of neon, questionable hair, and—if you believe the pixelated lore of Scott Cawthon—a mechanical bear taking a massive chunk out of someone's head. If you’ve spent more than five minutes in the Five Nights at Freddy's community, you know about fnaf the bite of 87. It’s the event that defined the franchise before the franchise even knew what it was. Phone Guy mentions it offhand in the first game, almost like a legal disclaimer. He tells us that the animatronics used to be allowed to walk around during the day. Then "the bite of 87" happened.
The consequences were immediate. The animatronics were grounded. The victim lost their frontal lobe. And somehow, they survived.
But here is the thing: the community spent years arguing over the wrong bite. When Five Nights at Freddy's 4 dropped, everyone saw Fredbear crush a child’s skull and screamed, "That’s it! That’s the bite!" Except it wasn’t. That was 1983. The real 1987 incident is much more subtle, hidden in the background of the second game, and involves a level of corporate negligence that makes Fazbear Entertainment look less like a pizza place and more like a crime syndicate.
The Day the Pizzeria Died
To understand the 1987 incident, you have to look at the setting of Five Nights at Freddy's 2. This is the "Grand Reopening" of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. They had a massive budget. They spent a fortune on "Toy" versions of the classic characters. These new models featured advanced facial recognition technology linked to a criminal database. The idea was to keep the kids safe from "predators."
Irony is a cruel mistress.
The restaurant was only open for a few weeks in November 1987. If you check the paycheck at the end of the game, it’s dated 1987. This is the smoking gun. Throughout the week, Phone Guy gets increasingly nervous. He mentions "rumors" and an ongoing investigation. By Night 6, he tells you the place is being shut down because someone used a "yellow spare suit" in the back. But there’s one last event scheduled: a birthday party.
"Wear your uniform," he tells the guard. "Stay close to the animatronics, make sure they don’t hurt anyone."
That birthday party is where it all went south. We don't see it in a cutscene. We don't get a dramatic reveal. We just get the aftermath: the Toy animatronics being scrapped for being "malfunctioning" and the restaurant closing its doors. The implication is heavy. One of those shiny, plastic-faced robots snapped.
Who Actually Did It?
For the longest time, Foxy was the prime suspect. People pointed to his broken jaw and sharp teeth in the first game as proof. "Look at him," they said. "He’s out of order because he bit someone." It made sense back in 2014.
But Foxy wasn't even the main attraction in '87. He was sitting in parts and service, rotting.
The real culprit is almost certainly Mangle. Think about it. Mangle is a "take apart and put back together" attraction. It’s a mess of wires and limbs that kids were allowed to play with. Mangle hangs from the ceiling. Its jumpscare in the second game is unique—it doesn't scream in your face; it swings down and bites directly at your forehead. Specifically, your frontal lobe.
Some people still swear by Toy Chica. She loses her beak, after all. Why? Maybe to fit a human head in her mouth better? It’s a theory, sure, but Mangle has the motive and the positioning. The Toy animatronics were becoming aggressive toward adults because their facial recognition was being tampered with. They saw the staff as criminals.
Jeremy Fitzgerald: The Forgotten Victim
The most widely accepted theory among lore hunters like MatPat and the various wiki contributors is that Jeremy Fitzgerald, the player character for the first six nights of FNaF 2, was the victim.
On Night 6, Jeremy is told to work the day shift for a birthday party. He’s told to stay near the animatronics. He’s wearing the purple security uniform—the very thing the robots have been programmed to associate with a "criminal" (or perhaps just the person who tampered with them).
Imagine the scene. A crowded room. High-pitched screaming kids. Jeremy, exhausted from five nights of surviving mechanical horrors, is standing too close to the "fixed" Mangle. The robot's sensors glitch. It sees a threat. One quick lunge, and the history of Fazbear Entertainment is changed forever.
This explains why Jeremy is replaced by Fritz Smith on Night 7. Jeremy didn't just quit. He was in the hospital.
Living Without a Frontal Lobe
Phone Guy’s most famous line is, "It’s amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?"
It sounds like a throwaway spooky line, but it’s actually a clue about the victim’s state. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that handles personality, decision-making, and motor function. In the real world, people have survived damage to this area—most famously Phineas Gage, who had a metal rod blown through his head. Gage lived, but his personality changed entirely. He became aggressive and "no longer Gage."
Whoever survived the bite of 87 was likely a shell of their former self. This adds a layer of body horror to the series that goes beyond "ghosts in the machines." It’s about the physical wreckage left behind by corporate incompetence.
83 vs 87: Why the Confusion?
We have to talk about the "Bite of 83." When the fourth game showed a child getting his head crushed by Fredbear, the internet exploded. It was the most divisive moment in the fandom's history.
Was this the Bite of 87?
No.
There are three major reasons why they are different:
- The Date: A TV in the FNaF 4 minigame explicitly shows "Fredbear and Friends: 1983."
- The Damage: The child in '83 had his entire head crushed. He died in the hospital (we hear the heart monitor flatline). The victim of '87 survived.
- The Tech: Fredbear was a springlock suit/animatronic hybrid. The '87 incident involved the high-tech Toy models.
The Bite of 83 was an accident caused by bullies (the older brother and his friends). The Bite of 87 was a mechanical failure—or a deliberate attack by a malfunctioning AI. They serve different purposes in the narrative. 1983 explains the origins of the Afton family's grief. 1987 explains why the robots are no longer allowed to roam.
The Lingering Legacy of the Event
The 1987 incident is the reason the first game feels so claustrophobic. If the robots could move during the day, the pizzaria would be a normal, bustling place. Instead, they are confined to the stage. They are "creepy" because they are stagnant.
It also marked the end of the "Toy" line. Fazbear Entertainment scrapped the expensive, high-tech models and went back to the old, smelly, "withered" versions for the 1990s location. They realized that more technology just meant more ways for things to go wrong.
Honestly, the bite of 87 is the perfect metaphor for the whole series. It’s a mystery that was solved by looking at a paycheck and a jumpscare animation. It proves that Scott Cawthon doesn't always give you the answer in a dialogue box. Sometimes, he just leaves a bloodstain on the floor and waits for you to find it.
How to Verify the Lore Yourself
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the evidence, you don't have to take a Redditor's word for it. You can track the timeline through the games yourself.
- Check the Paychecks: Look at the date on the Night 5 and Night 6 checks in FNaF 2. It confirms the year is 1987.
- Listen to the Phone Calls: Specifically, Night 1 of FNaF 1 and Night 6 of FNaF 2. They bridge the gap between the two events.
- Observe the Jumpscares: Watch Mangle’s movement in the second game. Notice how it targets the top of the head, unlike the others who go for the throat or face.
- Analyze the Map: In FNaF 4, the "83" code in the Private Room of the Sister Location bunker confirms that the minigame we thought was '87 was actually '83.
The Bite of 87 remains one of the most effective pieces of world-building in horror gaming. It took a simple gameplay mechanic—the fact that the animatronics stay on stage—and gave it a gruesome, tragic backstory that fans are still talking about over a decade later.
To really grasp the weight of the Bite of 87, re-play the second game and pay attention to the shift in tone during the final nights. The transition from a "safe" family environment to a crime scene is handled almost entirely through environmental storytelling. Focus on the newspaper clippings at the end of the game; they confirm the "Toy" animatronics were scrapped specifically because of their malfunctions, which wouldn't make sense if the bite had been caused by one of the old models. If you want to see the "alternative" tragedy, look for the 1983 easter eggs in the Sister Location breaker room maps to see how Scott Cawthon retroactively distinguished the two events.