Movie marking in "Wild Thornberrys"

Factual Questions
1

Saw the recent Wild Thornberrys movie with the boys yesterday. It had a marking on the film I hadn’t seen before. It was in the lower right corner of the film, and it was a single digit, in a colored circle, maybe a foot or two wide on the screen. The first marking appeared maybe 20 minutes into the film, and the digit was a one. It appeared for maybe 30 seconds, during which the color of the circle changed, I believe from green to red. After another maybe 20 mins, the same thing happened again with a digit two in the circle. I dozed through a lot of the last half, and I don’t know how many of these appeared.

As a teenager, I worked in a theatre, and I’m familiar with the marks in the upper right corner that mark an upcoming reel change for the projectionist, but this wasn’t that. Although the timing was such that it could’ve served the same purpose. But even if that’s the case, why the change? This was extremely noticable, though not really distracting from the movie. Also, in the case of the reel change markings, generally the scene change is carefully chosen to be quiet (minimal sound and no dialogue) and typically a long scenic shot. This way if the projectionist mis-timed the transition by 15 or 20 seconds, noone would notice. In the case of these numeric markings I didn’t see any of these sorts of transitions following, but that doesn’t really prove anything.

Anyone know the deal?

While we’re on the subject, are there actually any theatres around any more without single reel projectors? As near as I can tell any more they don’t even have on-staff professional projectionists; they have an usher start it up, and bring in projectionists just to build and tear down movies once a week. Is there any point to transition marks any more?

Thanks.

2

For the “Wild Thornberrys” that’s the odor vision. You get a card from some fast food place and when you see a number you scratch and smell it.

3

Precisely it’s Odorama from Burger King. Congratulations on having missed all those commercials. They are quite annoying.

4

AHHHH.

Now that you mention it, they did advertise it as “with Odorama” or such, and for the first 30 seconds of the movie, I wondered how that was going to work without a card. Then I got lost in the non-stop action, hilarity and absolute joy of the movie to remember odorama. Or maybe it was because I fell asleep, I can’t recall now.

Thanks, Fern Forest.

5

Yeah. Old drive-ins that never upgraded and lots of the old majestics will still have dual projectors.

6

I’ve wondered a few times today what I missed smelling, but truth is I don’t think I really want to know.

Thanks all.

7

Research shows us that the six Odorama smells in Rugrats Go Wild are:

  1. Strawberries
  2. Peanut butter
  3. Flower
  4. Stinky feet
  5. Root beer float
  6. Fish

Inscription on back of card shows us what’s going on:
"1. During the movie, you’ll see big RED NUMBERS flashing in the corner of the screen.
2. Find the glow-in-the-dark number on your card and SCRATCH THE CIRCLE next to it.
3. When the number on the screen turns green, SMELL THE CIRCLE on your card!
[sub]©2003 Viacom International and Burger King Brands(USA)-Burger King Corporation(elsewhere)[/sub]

Some people appear to have gotten their cards at the theater. Seattle and Catholic reviews state this. A guy in Walla Walla was really confused. He apparently thought it would have been done like an earlier gimmick, “Smellovision,” in which tubes wafted out appropriate scents.

(Obligatory pun: When critics say “this movie stinks,” they mean it!)