Nostalgia; Drive In Theaters

[MasterBlaster]

How many of you remember them? That was pretty much all the movie going I did as a child cuz my dad was too cheap to spring for concessions. At the drive in's you could bring all the food you wanted and you could SMOKE freely, lol. I can remember me and my 'lil brother playing on the swingsets and stuff as the sun was setting and mom spraying the bug spray on us.

Ahhh, those were the days. I think my last drive in movie was Jaws. I wish they were still around, I'm sure I'd enjoy them all over again. After all, you could SMOKE!!!

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[vharrison]

Those were the days my friend!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Can you remember your last movie?

 

[SkwerI]

Gigi, do you remember the drive-in just off Orange Avenue and Michigan, behind the Zayre's Center? That's the one I went to most often as a kid. They turned it into an auto auction site years ago.

 

[stehansen]

We have one in Ceres. It has two screens even. It's closed for the winter right now. It does way more business as a flea market on Sunday than it does as a theater, but it keeps going. I don't like sitting in the heat of the summer and I get uncomfortable sitting in my car seat that long not driving. I remember my mom putting us in our pajamas before we went because we would always fall asleep. As a teenager you needed to score a couple of six-packs before the movie and you were good to go.

 

[MasterBlaster]

The best way was to bring lawn chairs, or a truck.

 

[Paul B]

they closed our last one a few years ago. I remember the interlude cartoon with the hot dog jumping in to the bun took me till my teen years before I figured out why everyone clapped and honked their horns at that moment. My last time (that I remember clearly) was when I was parked in the back row and had a number of uniformed coppers tapping their flashlight on my window wanting to ask questions about if I had been drinking.... hahaha good times. Would have been about 1991 or 1992

 

[vharrison]

Gigi, do you remember the drive-in just off Orange Avenue and Michigan, behind the Zayre's Center? That's the one I went to most often as a kid. They turned it into an auto auction site years ago.

Yep, that is the last one I went to, I could not tell you the movie though.

 

[stehansen]

I took my kids a few years ago and it was still about 100 degrees at sundown. I can't remember the movie, but I can remember sweating like hell.

 

[MasterBlaster]

You shoulda been sipping an ice cold beverage from our concession stand!

 

[Al Smith]

There is still one operating in this area,one of the very few left in operation.

As a kid we went all the time.Pop for the kids,beer for the old man.

Later as a teenager on a date,I could have cared less what was playing as my mind was on other things.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I remember seeing Easy Rider and getting pissed off at the ending, then going to the local bowling alley hangout and just daring some redneck to look sideways at me.

 

[Che]

I think my last one was Night of the Living Dead. We went in my parents' '72 Blazer (the one I sold about two years ago) with a bunch of friends. It wasn't until much later that I found out it was in Black & White. Funny, I saw it 'in color'.

The year before I went with my boyfriend to see the one about the humans being held captive by apes. I thought it was a boring stupid movie.

My dad would bring the older three kids (leaving the baby and mom at home) to the drive-in on summer weekends. We'd see all the old 'B' horror flicks. That was before the slasher movies, they were just as scary though.

I remember the mosquitoes were pretty bad sometimes though....Minnesota.

 

[MasterBlaster]

You had to buy those circular green smoking things, plus bug spray - but hell, we didn't know anything better back then. We wuz having FUN!

 

[squisher]

We still have one here locally, go usually once a summer and of course it all works on the radio now, not like when I was a kid and you used to hang the crappy speaker in the window.

As a kid I remember the most exciting part was getting 'smuggled' into the drive-in by my cheap dad, we'd have to tuck right down behind the front seat, be perfectly still and covered in blankets we'd fool the gate and get in cheap.

 

[MasterBlaster]

He sounds like my pops, ha.

 

[JonnyHart]

We got one in Lockport, NY. It was great fun when I was a teenager. Not the same kinda fun now that whenever we go, there's kids in tow, and the strongest thing drank is coffee, but still fun.
I'll bump this thread with a pic in a few months.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Do they have the playground in front, under the screen?

 

[JonnyHart]

No. Not a bad idea though.

 

[MasterBlaster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater




Some drive-in theater managers added children's playgrounds between the screen and the first row of cars.

 

[Newfie]

Did the drive-ins growing up with the parents. Went a lot in high school with friends. Trunkload of beer and ice and park in the back row. Not sure if we ever actually saw the movies.
Gotta love the "delushus hot-doggies" cartoon at intermission.

 

[Al Smith]

The drive in movies was a part of "Americana" which of course includes our cousins to the north in Canada.Gee but it was fun .

Curb service by carhops on roller skates at the drive in resterants and 29 cent gasoline is just a part of history.Some of us lived it and some only heard about it.To tell the truth,it wasn't all that bad.

The 60's was a time that changed history."nam" and unrest brought about changes that were a long time in comming.I am proud to have been a part of it.Ha,damned near 60 and still a rebel at heart,that part will never change.

 

[vharrison]

You had to buy those circular green smoking things,

Ha, I remember those things!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Man, I wish I was rich!

 

[stehansen]

I don't know if they still do it but the downtown merchants in Fresno used to show movies with a projector on a wall once a week and about 300 people could sit in folding chairs and it was free. In the summer only of course, it was to try and bring people to the downtown because the businesses were struggling and the area was falling apart.