Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Remco Movieland Drive-in Theater

It's not a real drive-in theater, but a product of the Remco toy company. Founded in the 1940s, Remco got the drop on modern toys for a postwar baby booming generation. In 1959, it capitalized on the drive-in theater craze with the Movieland Drive-In Theater, one of several car-airplane-gun related toys it produced, like Mr. Kelly's Automatic Car Wash and The Flying Fox.


According to the Wikipedia site for Remco, the Movieland Drive-In Theater "consisted of cars, a drive in board with car spaces, a place to list "Featured Movies" along with blue and white double-bill cards that slid into the marquee; the "movie" was a film strip that projected by a battery operated light bulb onto a 4"x6" screen that attached to the drive in. Titles included Heckle and Jeckle, Have Gun Will Travel, Mighty Mouse, Farmer Al Falfa."

To see it in action, watch the product's original 1959 television commercial, starring the very young Patty Duke:



If you're drooling to get your hands on a vintage edition of this toy, try this auction site, complete with pictures. Remember always...buyer beware.

3 comments:

  1. I own one of these, still works. Only missing one film strip, and one car.

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  2. I remember getting one of those for Christmas when I was five.I played and played with it to pieces. However,I got another one for Christmas when I was six. (Mighty Mouse and Farmer Alfalfa) I couldn't get another one when I was seven. They'd stopped making them. The Give-a-Show Projector was a poor substitute.

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