In The Theatre - Then and Now

[urgeok2]

We took the kid to 17 Again tonight - i was dreading it - but it actually ended up being suprisingly funny)

anyway - while i was there i was describing my theatre experience to my son as something very different from what he gets today.

I know some towns still have the older theatres that have this - but i'll be damned if any of the theatres in Toronto have balconies. That was the deal when we were kids - heading right for the balconies where we could raise hell (and wreck the make-out sessions of the older kids)

we'd throw crap and someone would always get kicked out.


the other thing though - the big deal .. was the popcorn boxes.
For the last few decades, popcorn has been served in bags ... not when i was a kid ...

we had popcorn boxes ... about 12" X 8" and they could be flattened and thrown like lethal cardboard frizbees. I'm sure they changed to bags after several kids lost their eyes to these things.


it was the common practice - in our town - to throw these things en masse at one point - either as soon as the lights went down - as the curtain went up - or after the cartoon, i cant remember .

sometimes there were so many it was surreal ... i'd forgotten about this and although it was for the best - i still kind of miss the experience.


thats one other thing too ... there was always a cartoon before the kids movies - always ... some were really funny and i've never seen them since..

(like the one where the Dr Frankenstein - baker made this giant cake come alive - that went around eating people.

"Knock Knock"
"who's there ?"
"not the cake"

after all these years that's still stuck in my head.




but what i really wanted to know is - from the other select old bastards here - does anyone else remember winging those popcorn boxes ??

[neverending]

We threw candy at the kid mattinees I went to as a kid and adolesent. My neighborhood theatre didn't have a balcony though.

Popcorn here is sold in buckets now.

[Posher778]

I actually remember the popcorn boxes... They used those in Atlanta at the theatre I worked at until a few years ago. I haven't seen any good pre-movie cartoons recently, but the short clips before some of Disney/Pixar's movies are usually pretty funny.

[newb]

memories....Like the corners of my mind


We had the balcony...the cartoons before the movie and the cardboard popcorn boxes. But I don't recall turning them into weapons. You Canadians are such a violent breed. :D

[cheebacheeba]

the other thing though - the big deal .. was the popcorn boxes.
For the last few decades, popcorn has been served in bags ... not when i was a kid ...

we had popcorn boxes ..

We can't NOT get popcorn in boxes here, it's the way I've always remembered it.
Unless you're talking about like, store bought crap, the cinemas have 'em in boxes.


I have observed one difference in either me or there...I used to get cold in cinemas, it was like they always had the air-con on, I'd take something warm to wear, now it seems to not be an issue.

I remember more promotional music clips...etc used to play before movies and yeah the occasional lead-in cartoon.

[crabapple]

My favorite memory of the Rosemead 4 Theatres--a sort of miniplex we had out here in the 70's, at the far end of a shopping center--was the sticky floor from all the spilled soda. Your shoes would make a crackly sound walking there...there was carpeting in the aisles but in the seating areas the floor was hard and covered with this glue-like dried soda. I never personally threw anything--we did not behave barbarically, as the Canadians are known to do--but there was one screen that had a hole in it and they never bothered to fix the hole. Every time I noticed the hole I would think, "Oh, the bastard that did that!"

The Rosemead 4 is long gone now. I think the last movie I saw there was Robocop, and before that I saw a lot of great movies, Disney flicks, The Boogens, The Hearse, Fade to Black, A Christmas Story and others. There was a Thrifty drugstore in that shopping center, and you could get a scoop of ice cream in a cone for 15 cents at one point, there was also an ARCADE right next to the theatre, and an unusually good Saturday would have the folks dropping you and your buddies off for most of the day, to see how far you could stretch the $5 allowance money. Good times!

[ferretchucker]

Before the multiplex was built the cinema I went to in the town about 20 miles away (closest cinema) was pretty old. It had curtains that lifted up to reveal the screen and just after the advertisments were shown they stopped the screen for ten minutes and sold ice cream down at the front of the theatre. No balconies though. Oh, and they had proper tickets and people with torches. None of that now.

[Elvis_Christ]

One of the yearly film festivals in my town sceens movies in a old theatre with a balcony... really great place to watch flicks it has a great atomosphere that the other theatres lack.

We've always just had the cup styled deals for popcorn.

The theatre in the town where I grew up had a balcony area but all the choas went on downstairs while the balcony area was an escape for people who wanted to watch the movie in peace :D ...I think it cost a couple of extra bucks to sit up there so the kids would head downstairs to make their pocket money go a little further.