Special Events: Your Continued Patronage is Appreciated

'Saturday Night at the Drive In', March 2nd 2013.To all you car enthusiasts out there who would love to check... fb.me/1XBdyC43I
— Dromana 3 Drive-In (@dromana3drivein) February 28, 2013

Keep 3/14 open! We are hosting a special screening of #SELENA for the @sdlatinofilm fest! #pbdrivein #sandiego #movielovers
— Full Moon Drive-In (@FullMoonDriveIn) February 27, 2013

Drive-in Theater Looks to Put Down Roots

From KWQC.com, a story of a drive-in theater struggling to come to life:

Many in the QCA have been waiting years for another Drive-In movie theater. In 2008, plans were made for a drive in theater to open up in Davenport but that never happened. Now, those owners are working to bring the big screen to Blue Grass, IA.

Owners want to put in the West end of Blue Grass, just past the fire department on Mayne Street. Randy Lorenz and his wife have 9 acres of land that they're hoping to bring the big screen too. Currently, the land is empty but by spring the owners of this property say it's not going to look like that at all.  That's if anything goes as planned.

Drive-in Movie Theaters Popular Again

Drive-In Tweets: Your Patronage is Appreciated

Oz the Great & Powerful starts next Friday, March 8. We can have an early premier Thursday March 7 as long as we... fb.me/1hLoF334A

— Hwy 21 Drive In (@Hwy21DriveIn) February 26, 2013

A Pee Chee Folder, a Shoe Box of Baseball Cards, and a Fan Trailer

Let me set the stage: it's late 1998 and I'm in a theater lobby waiting with my then two youngest daughters to see The Rugrats Movie, and when I look up I see hanging on the wall a rather large poster. There are no words on this advertisement, only a young boy standing amid sand dunes dressed like Luke Skywalker.  It takes me a few moments but I soon notice the boy's shadow, how it stretches out into the shape of Darth Vader. This wasn't my first clue that this film was on its way. Still, I nearly pee my pants with glee. But I am waiting for the movie trailer...

On the advent of that film's teaser trailer a CNN article (11/20/98) put it this way:

"Star Wars" junkies eager to catch a glimpse of the first prequel, your wait is over: 75 theaters in North America got to show a sneak preview [italics mine] of the trailer for "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" among the trailers shown before other full-length feature movies.

The preview will appear nationwide on Friday. But loyal fans who paid close attention to the official Star Wars Web site learned there would be a sneak preview Tuesday in some theaters across the country.

Some people are apparently paying the full price of a movie ticket just to see the two-minute preview. Variety reported that nearly two-thirds of the 500 people in an afternoon showing of "The Siege" in Los Angeles walked out after seeing the trailer. Movie theaters across the country reported other fans doing the same thing.

Asked to comment, one fan who saw the trailer in Washington said "Unbelievable. I consider myself a harsh critic, but after the trailer I was applauding."

Drive-In Culture Documentary

Here's a small clip from an hour long documentary on drive-ins I privately produced, wrote and edited in 2009. It's still in the rough-cut stage and when I have the time to really give it a good going over I will finish it. But here is a segment from that documentary that I want to share. This pretty much captures my mind-set and style throughout the work.

Retro Cars of the Atomic-Space Age: The--What, Mobile!?

When the climes begin to succumb to the arrival of spring, as the new drive-in theater season ramps up across the nation, consider loading up your snacks and kids into the following vehicles for your evening jaunt to the big screen.

The Ford Futura

If this looks like the Batmobile from the 1960s TV series...you're not mistaken. But it's not the Batmobile. This 1950s sci-fi looking beast is a futuristic concept car from Lincoln, a division of the Ford Motor Company and, as you can quite and plainly see, was not mass produced. What this car did was drum up a good deal of attention for Lincoln and Ford, and was featured prominently in 1959's It Started with a Kiss starring Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds. 

A Night at the Skyline Drive-In Theater

My daughter and I enjoyed an evening watching Despicable Me and Toy Story 3, both of which were very entertaining, Toy Story 3 being the better film. This is our first trip to The Skyline this summer. We're hoping to get back.

Drive-in BBQ

Not that you see it much today, if at all (The Starlite Drive-in offers a BBQ for $1.95), but throughout the 1950s and 60s BBQ products were a popular menu item for drive-in and indoor theaters.

One common name was Smithfield brand BBQ items, which have been around for over 50 years. Today you can go online here and get their famous James River brand BBQ sauce and other products. Below is one of several versions of their drive-in commercials produced in the late 50s, touting their product.



Another BBQ product was Castleberry's Pit Cooked BBQ. For the history of Castleberry's I'll let this informational blurb from their website tell the story:

Castleberry Food Company was founded in Augusta, Georgia on the popularity of barbecued pork and beef recipes of Clement Lamar Castleberry, a gentleman who loved entertaining and expressed it best by serving his guests the best barbecue they ever tasted. By 1922, Mr. Clem was preparing barbecue for crowds as large as 12,000. In 1926, Clem's son, Clement Stewart Castleberry, hit on the idea of canning his father's famous barbecue hash and Brunswick stew. Thus, Castleberry Product Company was established in a humble shed on Fifteenth Street.

During World War II, the firm produced no commercial products, but worked tirelessly producing military rations. Mr. Clem was dubbed "The Rebel with The Pepper Shaker" and the U.S. Army bestowed on Castleberry two "A" awards.

Still located on Fifteenth Street in Augusta Georgia, there are two manufacturing sites which consist of a large 230,000 sq foot facility on 22 acres that processes canned and frozen products and a 25,000 square foot facility that processes fresh vegetables.

Who produced these and other commercials for drive-in snackbars? Go here and here and learn more!

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.