When I was a kid I used to go spend a week or so with my aunt and uncle in MI. They were big on going to the drive ins. One (of several) movies I recall was this sci-fi gem.
Also, this classic examination of the biker lifestyle
Maybe I just fell asleep before the main feature that might have been a better film.
I’m 43 and have never been to one or even seen one in business.
Been to many as a kid, and a few in San Jose as an adult.
I do not remember the films much. I remember there being a playground, which was used to tire us kids out. I remember eating LOTS of my Dads special popcorn- cook in huge pot, add butter and salt, then place in a doubled large paper grocery bag. His theory is that some of the oil would soak into the paper, leaving the butter taste behind. I dunno if it worked, but it was fantastic!
I remember going to a couple with my first GF and making out like mad. No actual intercourse, just petting.
I don’t recall seeing anything crazy. In fact, the only specific occasion I recall going to a drive in we saw a double feature of Mannequin (1987, Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall) and The Color of Money (1986, Paul Newman and Tom Cruise).
Drive ins never really appealed to me, because I never considered a car a comfortable place to be crammed into for four hours, with a restricted view of the screen, and terrible sound quality. And if you got out to sit outside the car, there were insects and other weird nature stuff running around in the dark.
As a kid…I don’t remember. I have been to some since, however.
Another memory I have is going to the concession stand with my cousins and seeing a lot of young teenage girls, a few years my senior, all dolled up and looking good. I was a few years away from understanding all that but still a clear memory.
Very occasionally and I saw nothing particularly awful. But I also never saw anything particularly good. It was always some level of schlock. About the last one I think was the slasher flick The Silent Scream. And I think that is the one where we saw it at a multiplex drive-in at which one of the screens was showing flat-out hardcore porn 
. The screen was angled away and of course no sound, but if you craned your neck…
Drive-ins in those winding down days were definitely an odd experience.
My parents took me a bunch of times. I don’t remember any crazy things.
We saw “The Love Bug” and “Mary Poppins”. They were fun. We also saw “Anne of the Thousand Days.” Very boring for a young child. I went outside the car to play with my sister.
My brother was renting a house with a view of the outdoor movie screen in our small town when they were showing M*A*S*H. I was about 12 at the time, and wondered why he bragged about seeing it from his front yard with his friends. He wouldn’t let me watch a certain scene involving a shower and a nurse…
Do they even show R rated movies in outdoor theaters if there are nude scenes? Sounds risky to me.
For several years, the drive in theater near me was an adult theater. Full on 1970s and 1980s porn. There weren’t any residential areas nearby and it was adjacent to a freeway and an Air Force base, so there wasn’t any accessible point from where you could sneak a peek.
Heh, the drive-in on Jefferson in Grand Prairie, Texas was clearly visible from the two adjoining, well traveled streets. They would show full on 80s and 70s porn. I got a mild education from it when my parents would drive past it late at night.
But really, the drive-in was pretty tame. The most amazing thing I saw there was when I got bored with Heaven Can Wait in the second half of a double feature and turned around and watched the silent version of Alien instead. To this day, I really think that movie is scarier with the sound off.
The only crazy thing I saw was the inside of my parents trunk. My parents had a car that you could access the trunk directly from the back seat. I would hide in there until we got past the ticket guy.
I was still young enough to find the trunk hiding part fun despite the bad example my parents were setting.
I think that the only one I saw was Pandemonium when I was 10.
There was one of those in my area, too.
We went to the drive-in movies all the time when I was in high school. One of my best friends had an old Rambler, the kind with the front bench seats that folded back to turn the car into a king-sized bed. Our girlfriends were best friends, so whatever went on under the blankets was ignored by the other couple.
I remember such fare as a triple feature showing The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and some other “Women In Chains” flick. $5/car load.
The only film I remember was the original True Grit which is actually fairly good.
I saw lots of mainstream releases at the drive-in during the 70s. My most distinct memory is of this turkey, in the summer of 1978:
It’s basically terrible, but it’s a memorable terrible for a variety of reasons. It’s now kind of a cult favorite despite being largely unredeemable. (MST3K did it later.)
Years later, I saw some pretty crazy stuff on drive-in screens because the Seattle film festival would use the one surviving location to show its offbeat program, but I don’t think that counts. Laserblast was an OG release.
(Also, I never saw drive-in porn, but as weird as it sounds to have explicit images three stories high in the open air, it actually makes some sense for the, uh, privacy it affords the viewers.)
We spent summers at my Grandmother’s place up north. We got one channel on TV, and the picture was usually snowy, so unless we wanted to play another evening of bridge to the radio (gah!), we went to the local drive-in movie.
There was always a double-bill, an A picture and a B picture. The B picture came on first, and were often the kind that would go on to be cult classics, or they’d be simply forgotten. Still, I recall seeing Two Lane Blacktop, They Came to Rob Las Vegas, Electra-Glide in Blue, and Chato’s Land as B pictures.
The A picture, which came on after the intermission previews and the dancing candy bars, hot dogs, popcorn, and soft drinks (all available at the snack bar as the cartoon told us!) was usually something that was a Big Deal. So, Jaws, The Sting, Murder on the Orient Express, and even Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang were the A pictures.
Never mind, they all beat another interminable evening of contract bridge and the radio.
I saw it in the theater when it came out. I was ~ten and I thought the laser weapon was cool 
. I saw it again maybe 15 years later on late night TV and Sweet Jesus is it bad. But yes - memorably bad.
In the early '70’s between the feature and co-feature (remember getting two movies for the price of one!), they would show R-Rated trailers between PG rated movies. I remember telling my friends about the gigantic 20ft boob I saw!
I used to envy the kids in the apartments across the street from the drive-in! Sometimes when driving past, you’d catch a few glimpses of boobies beyond the fence. I always wished we caught the red light, but never did.
I have a very faint memory of seeing Darby O’Gill and the Little People at a drive-in. I guess I woulda been 8. And I recall driving late one night on a trip and catching a glimpse of a naked woman as we passed a drive-in. The kinda thing that really sticks w/ a little boy…