So here it is, 530ish in the am. Mrs. Guest and I took my fosterling to his first drive-in theater movies last night. Minions and Jurassic World :dubious::rolleyes::):rolleyes::dubious: and heh! fosterling was more fun to watch than the movies almost. Anyway, I’ve been up for a while now with the fosterling because we allowed him to have too much popcorn and soda:smack:. totally mundane(ish) part of life
So that got me wondering, how in the hell are drive-in theaters a fading thing in the US? Admission per person is more than the second-run places so you get first-run movies, but not as much as a regular theater since there is less building to maintain. And with the advent of low power radio transmission no more crappy speakers hanging off the car window. Also, every night is a double feature, you get to bring your own snacks, or if you want something like a hotdog or hamburger or the like, the concessions stand (in my experience) is not outrageously overpriced. Heck my local drive-in actually grills outside when the weather is better(it is getting towards the end of the season)
So that got me thinking back to my youth, and the drive-in theaters we used to have. We had five (5) around here, and one of them (the one we went to last night) had THREE SCREENS!!!11!!1 Now we have two. The triple screen theater now only uses one screen, and the other drive-in is about 45 minutes or so drive time from my house.
So, tell me about your awesome drive-in movie theater or memories of such
not meant as a bump for my own thread, I had to run off to attend the fosterling
SIGH, there were a small number of questions and observations I wanted to post, all of mundane and, possibly, pointless nature, but now all I can think of is Bruawn Number Too and Tecknicolor Spue.
Does anyone remember the print version of Discover Magazine? is it still around, or has Discover gone digital entirely? Does Discover even still exist in any format? I had a subscription years ago, kinda wondered.
What do you think would happen to the world if a lab somewhere published a paper documenting totally verifiable and repeatable with same results experiments and data tomorrow, proving the existence of God?
There, there are a couple of questions I wonder about from time to time, one mundane and one pointless
its been a very long morning, leaving me very paranoid and suspicious of my coffee
Cost of gas to run the engine for heat/AC as needed.
Late start during summer/DST. Two movies, kids and a late night sometimes don’t mix.
Poor quality picture. (I haven’t been to a drive-in since 1968 so this might be better) Though I can’t imagine the picture is anywhere as good as a regular theater.
Customer base is probably also a big factor. You can operate indoor theaters in towns and cities where you have large populations and more potential customers. Outdoor theaters have to be out in rural areas, where there’s fewer people.
not true, of the two remaining here, only one was ever rurally located. the others that went away were all “studio theaters” the largest was a United Artists theater and I don’t remember what studio affiliation the others had.
Far as picture quality, Coach, the theater I go to has digital projection, but last night I realized they DO need a new screen
Last time we went to a drive-in, it was Movie Manor, a motel in south central Colorado. We watched the big screen (Wall-E) from our room (the Humphrey Bogart room), which had the sound piped in.
Speaking of Bogart, my other comparatively recent memories of drive-ins faded almost as soon as they happened. I think we saw Stripes and I vaguely recall Where Does It Hurt, but with the radio speaker setup, the windows were rolled up, which trapped all the smoke in the cab. I certainly do not remember the drive home.
Land prices in suburbia don’t match up with the revenue / profit of a drive-in vs. the land area they consume. So they sort-of need to be at the suburban / rural divide where land prices aren’t too high and suburbia can provide most of the paying customers. Hence the decline & demise of drive-ins nowadays.
My last drive-in event was when Top Gun first came out. So ~1986. The local drive-in in North Las Vegas was almost, but not quite dead. So a bunch of us from the squadron grabbed our wives / GFs / SOs and went. We left the cars behind in one row and made a big picnic on the ground spread across a couple spaces with all the nearby speakers on posts cranked to 11. We were one of about 5 groups in a drive-in with space for a couple hundred cars. It was a ghost town.
Whenever Kelly McGillis was on-screen the women were all enraptured & we were drinking & cursing & BSing & …
Whenever there were jets on the screen we were paying close attention and hurling insults at the gaping technical holes in the movie, while the girls had all turned back to their white wines & snacks, utterly disinterested in the show.
If ever we wondered whether two people could see the same movie and have two utterly different experiences …
There is one near the Cleveland, Ohio that is right up against the Ohio Turnpike. Close enough to park on the side of the highway and watch the movie if you wanted. Not that I would advise that.
Actually, come to think of it, the three around here are all in areas that are not rural at all.
Personally, I live drive in movies. I’d much rather see a movie at a drive in than go to a theater.
So my memories from childhood are that it was a treat. We didn’t have to be “quiet” or “sit still and stop squirming” snacks were more abundant since we could bring our own and if the movie wasn’t interesting enough we could curl up in the very back (we had an international travelal) and go to sleep. Obviously this predates seatbelt and car seat laws. Many of these are still true for kids today. With materials tech today the having to run the engine for ac/heat is not nearly as true. And at the height of the season the late start (for kids) is part of the fun.
I remember when I was a little kid, going to the drive-in and getting to wear my pajamas–cool!
And as a college student (early 1970s) going in my bf’s pickup truck with a bunch of friends. We backed into the space, hung the speaker (or two if the slot next to us was empty) on the side of the pickup bed, set up our lawn chairs, opened the cooler full of snacks and sodas. Nice. I don’t think we had beer, because it prolly wasn’t allowed, and more to the point, we prolly couldn’t afford it.
Guess I’ve never loosened my lips from my date of the week to notice the movie!
Actually I loved drive ins…I have no idea if there are any left in Michigan
About the only movies I remember at a drive in was the the porn version of Sinbad but I cannot remember the name of them anymore, there was a series of them
OOOOOhhhh yeeeahhhh, I forgot about that Thelma (can I call you Thelma? seems to mentally flow smoother for me than ThelmaLou). HEH! first saw Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka at the drive-in while wearing my jammies…
Sigh, by the time I was old enough to be interested in girls, somehow drive-in theaters fell off my radar, next county over was the next universe over far as I was concerned and by that time that’s where all the drive-ins were that were left. kinda glad I missed that porn stuff, though.
and Jurassic World :dubious::rolleyes::):rolleyes::dubious: and heh! fosterling was more fun to watch than the movies almost. Anyway, I’ve been up for a while now with the fosterling because we allowed him to have too much popcorn and soda:smack:. totally mundane(ish) part of life
The triple screen theater now only uses one screen, and the other drive-in is about 45 minutes or so drive time from my house.