visit the snack bar

A short film from the fifties shown prior to the movie invites theatre patrons to visit the snack bar and load up on delicious “snacks.” It’s shown at the local “art” theatre in the medium-sized city where I live. Buy “snacks,” it says, as it shows fully dressed hamburgers and hot dogs, and “full meals” while the screen shows us pizza. I’m not sure what distinguishes pizza as a full meal as opposed to a hamburger (especially fully dressed with lettuce tomato, relish, mustard, and ketchup) or hot dog (adorned in relish and sauerkraut). Maybe we think hamburgers and hot dogs need a side dish but pizza contains its own side dish.

It’s fun to see the old crushed ice melting in the old brightly colored paper cups. And the perfectly dressed mothers helping their perfectly dressed children. We are exhorted to buy the snacks of full meals and delicious beverages. And all the rest of the standard movie fare: popcorn, gum, and candy. Gum? Gum?? There’s not a theater in America at this moment that sells gum. No theme park sells gum. No organization wants gum on its premises. Gum. No current candy counter would sell gum.

But the biggest problem with the film is that it takes place at a drive-in. It’s not so bad that a drive-in film is being shown in a theater. We’re intelligent patrons, we can make the cognitive leap from one environment in the film to the environment in which we actually find ourselves. But when the patrons take their snack bar comestibles back to their car it is daylight. Hmmmm.