Reminds me of a time back in my youth when I would change the marquee every Thursday night. In those days it was just single screen locations, which should tell you how long ago my youth was. With just one movie and a large marquee, another relic from the past, I would always put up the names of the stars as well as a tag line in addition to the movie title. On this particular night I was taking down "Portnoy's Complaint" and replacing it with a nature documentary called "Elephant Kingdom." Since this was a time consuming job the manager would let me start changing the marquee while the next to the last show was running. I could change all of the lines except for the departing title. That had to remain up until the last showing started. It was not until the customers for the last show started asking about the sign that I realized the tag line for the new movie; "Wildlife In It's Natural State" was positioned nicely balanced above the outgoing title; "Portnoy's Complaint."
I've been trying to remember some nutty marquees from my theatre days, too. None pop to mind, but here's is an old joke from Johnny Carson, as I recall.
Bad double feature: "JAWS," followed by "THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN."
There is always the story of what happened at the Lenox Square Theatre in October 1972. #1 was showing a Sergio Leone western, "Duck You Sucker" while #2 had "Fiddler On The Roof." Someone (rumor was that it was a disgruntled employee) swapped the first letters from each title during the night. This was on the Peachtree Road marquee, so it was there for an entire morning rush hour to enjoy.
I wrote about this incident, which occurred in Atlanta, in Once Upon a Sign in the South, based on your sharing of the tale with me, but I understood the main entrance marquee was the one vandalized. The elevated sign on the main road, however, required much more effort and nerve to alter -- and is funnier because untold thousands of extra eyes would have seen the results.
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Reminds me of a time back in my youth when I would change the marquee every Thursday night. In those days it was just single screen locations, which should tell you how long ago my youth was. With just one movie and a large marquee, another relic from the past, I would always put up the names of the stars as well as a tag line in addition to the movie title. On this particular night I was taking down "Portnoy's Complaint" and replacing it with a nature documentary called "Elephant Kingdom." Since this was a time consuming job the manager would let me start changing the marquee while the next to the last show was running. I could change all of the lines except for the departing title. That had to remain up until the last showing started. It was not until the customers for the last show started asking about the sign that I realized the tag line for the new movie; "Wildlife In It's Natural State" was positioned nicely balanced above the outgoing title; "Portnoy's Complaint."
I've been trying to remember some nutty marquees from my theatre days, too. None pop to mind, but here's is an old joke from Johnny Carson, as I recall.
Bad double feature: "JAWS," followed by "THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN."
There is always the story of what happened at the Lenox Square Theatre in October 1972. #1 was showing a Sergio Leone western, "Duck You Sucker" while #2 had "Fiddler On The Roof." Someone (rumor was that it was a disgruntled employee) swapped the first letters from each title during the night. This was on the Peachtree Road marquee, so it was there for an entire morning rush hour to enjoy.
I wrote about this incident, which occurred in Atlanta, in Once Upon a Sign in the South, based on your sharing of the tale with me, but I understood the main entrance marquee was the one vandalized. The elevated sign on the main road, however, required much more effort and nerve to alter -- and is funnier because untold thousands of extra eyes would have seen the results.
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