Are the old record jukeboxes still in use anywhere? I can remember seeing the ones that selected a 45 RPM record from a big stack…then flipped the record onto a turntable, and played it. These must have been pretty reliable, because they were played incessantly…and every small restaurant seemed to have them.
There was also a machine called a “soundey”? It was a big, tall machine, with a 30" ground glass screen. It would play a 3 minute video clip of a pop[ular singer, band etc., accompanied by music. I saw one of these in a junk dealer’s shop…it had died, and no one knew how to fix it. these must have been very complicated machines, witha 35 mm movie projector inside, plus a record syste. Does anybody know who made these machines, and how long were they on the market?
Again, having a projection lamp (prone to failure) must have made these things very difficult to repair…they must have been a flop for whoever made them.
All about Soundies. The movie projector contained within the Panoram (the coin-operation machine on which you watched a Soundie) was 16mm, not 35mm.
One big impetus for the popularity of the Soundies and Panorams was that when the American Federation of Musicians went on strike against the record companies in 1942-1944, one of the exceptions was motion picture work. Thus, if you wanted to hear the new hit songs of the day on the juke box, they weren’t available on the radio or at the record shop. You had to see them as Soundies on the Panoram.