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Date Night
Movie theaters have gone through many evolutions since their start. When was that, I wondered? I was surprised to learn it was in 1893 at the Chicago Expedition, where Eadweard Mybridge’s new motion picture machine was known as the Zoopraxigraphical. In 1894, a newer, improved machine at the Cotton States Exposition was named the Phantoscope. The inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins, sold the Phantoscope to Thomas Edison who held the first public showing in 1896 in New York City. Edison’s version of the machine was called a Vita Scope. Edison built Vita Scope machines and sold them, and thus began the growth of the hometown movie theaters! The first storefront theater to show motion pictures in Vitascope Hall was on Canal Street in New Orleans in 1896, where 90 people were seated. Soon folks all over the country would see motion pictures in their cities and small towns. The oldest continually operating motion picture theater in the world is the State Theater in Washington, Iowa, which opened in 1897, and continues today. The pairing of movie and popcorn began in 1925. Like love and marriage, we can’t have one without the other! The smell of the movie theater is popcorn.
In the 40s and 50s television moved into our homes and theater attendance dropped significantly. Movies never lost their appeal, but their popularity waned, and theaters began closing. In the 50s and 60s more than 4000 Drive-Ins brought the movie goers back out. For the post- war generation with young children and limited budgets, the Drive-In was the answer. And, there was popcorn. In the 70s smaller cars, due to the oil crisis, made the Drive-In less comfortable, attendance dropped, and owners sold their valuable acreage to developers craving the edge-of-town buildable sites. There are few Drive-Ins left, but they, and the big cars, will always be nostalgic movie icons.
When VCRs entered the home scene in 70s and 80s, theaters responded with Cineplex, multiple theaters, ergonomic seats, opulent ambience; a theater “experience.” We didn’t attend too many movies in the 70s to 90s. A drive through heavy traffic, expensive tickets, $8 bucks for popcorn, and an era of unappealing movies, wasn’t a pleasant or affordable experience.
We’ve come full circle now. We walk 4 minutes to get there, buy an affordable ticket, pay $1 for popcorn, see a “family” feature, and walk home holding hands at a “respectable” hour. Like the good-old days!