Original subtitles

-♪ Hey, everybody, have you heard the news? ♪

♪ Joe Bob is back in town ♪

♪ He's over at the drive-in, hanging around ♪

♪ Watching crazy movies, so come on down ♪

♪ To Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Blood, beasties, boobies, and more ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's a spooky good time with monsters and ghosts ♪

♪ Crazy, kooky fun with the world's greatest host ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be legendary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be very scary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Let's go ♪

-No, that's not big enough.

No, that's not big enough either.

That's more like it.

We're delighted to have you with us,

and we extend a cordial welcome to you.

We've lined up the top stars from Hollywood

and from all over the world

to entertain you on our giant screen

with the new, colorful motion pictures

you've been hearing about and reading about.

To add to your enjoyment,

we're all wound up to bowl you over at intermission time

with live-wire service at our snack bar,

where you'll find a tempting variety

of favorite foods and beverages.

Your continued patronage is very, very welcome.

-Welcome, folks, to "The Last Drive-In."

Ed Roberts, he always used that word -- "folks."

Or "friend."

"Welcome back, friend, to our theater.

The whole family is welcome, young and old.

If you live with or near a shut-in,

bring them to the drive-in for free admission!"

They actually had what they called shut-in passes

that you could pick them up at the drugstore

or the bank to make sure wheelchair-bound people knew,

that even though it was a hassle to go to that

indoor theater downtown,

at the drive-in, you were royalty.

Now, why am I talking about all this?

Ed Roberts, by the way,

the voice on that welcoming clip,

was the voice of the drive-in for three decades

because all of the drive-in trailers

and the ads were made by Filmack Studios of Chicago,

and Ed was the voice-over guy at Filmack.

"Time for a taste treat!"

They always had tasty treats at the concession stand.

And of course the most famous taste treat

was the dancing hot dog.

Now I'm talking about all this because, well, you know, Darcy,

tonight is your birthday, so happy birthday.

Thank you.

-But what's almost as important as your birthday...

-Way more important.

It is the birthday of the drive-in.

-That's right!

Tonight is the birthday of the drive-in!

On June 6th, 1933,

the automobile movie theater opened for business

with a sellout crowd.

Can we show that picture, Austin?

Look at all those cars lined up

for the motion picture experience of the future.

The capacity was 500 cars,

but they stuffed in 600 cars on that opening night.

Somehow they got them all in on Admiral Wilson Boulevard

in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey,

one of the first streets in America

that was built exclusively for automotive use.

400 acres set aside for the first drive-in.

And tonight, on "The Last Drive-In,"

we celebrate that heritage with a memento from 92 years ago.

This is very special.

What is this storied artifact that we have here?

Run that video, Austin. -Alright.

Show how we got this.

It's hard to believe that this is where it all happened,

this is where it all took place.

Ooh.

That Zinman sign over there

is where the projection booth was.

That means we would be on about the fifth row in 1933.

Not getting anything here.

Up here closer to the fourth row.

This wind comes off the Cooper River,

and I can't hear the metal detector thing.

It's just a beer can. Oh, man.

There's a lot going on over here.

-Right there? -There's something right here.

-Okay. -We got to dig right here.

-What, me? -Yeah, go for it.

-Alright.

-No! No, no, no, no, no. -What do you...

-This is history, man. Be careful.

Oh, man.

Oh, man.

Wow.

It's a Zippo.

That's a piece of American history right there.

1933.

We need to record this for -- for history.

I'm gonna eyeball the distance.

It's row one, two, three, four, five.

We're in row six.

We're probably between car space two and car space three.

92 years ago, somebody lost their Zippo.

And, uh, it's a piece of Americana right here.

And here's what we found.

I'm gonna show it to you first, Darcy.

-Okay.

-There you have it.

A genuine piece of American history.

Somebody in a Ford V-8 sedan... -Cool.

-...or maybe a Packard Super Eight

was smoking during the screening

of "Wives Beware," starring Adolphe Menjou

in the first movie ever shown at a drive-in,

and he dropped his Zippo.

And through our careful archaeological dig,

we were able to recover the Zippo and preserve it.

Of course, we'll be donating this to a museum.

-I don't think there's any museum

that's gonna care about that.

-Because museums hate drive-ins, don't they?

-No, it's because it could have landed there

at any time over the past 92 years.

-Oh, no, but, Darcy, you're not correct.

There would be no reason

to smoke in this open field after 1934.

And as we all know,

one of the big selling points for the first drive-in

and all the early drive-ins right up through the present,

is that you could smoke while watching the movie.

Even in the years when you could smoke almost anywhere,

you could not smoke in an indoor theater.

So the drive-in is what set people free

to watch movies the way God intended.

-With a cigarette in their mouth.

-No, in the comfort of their personal automobile.

It's like having a private box at the opera.

And this is exactly how Richard Hollingshead sold

that experience on June 6th, 1933.

He said, "Come here. Your car is your private box.

You can smoke, you can drink, you can eat,

you can talk out loud."

The drive-in was a giant slice of democracy

inserted into the stuffy world of the cinema.

-Hell yeah.

-Hell yes, it was. -Hell yeah.

-As everyone knows,

people would even make the sign of the two-humped,

growling, heat-seeking anaconda in the back seat

of their Studebakers.

But we'll get into that later.

-I feel like we could get into that right now.

-No, we're still -- -Let's rant.

-We're still doing the first night in drive-in history

when people actually dressed up like it was a world premiere.

But when Richard Hollingshead was interviewed

the day before the first drive-in opened,

he was interviewed in the Camden Courier-Post.

They asked him what was the advantage of a drive-in.

And the very first thing, he said, was,

well, smoking is the first advantage.

Then he added all the other things that I just mentioned,

including talking to your friends during the movie.

But he also talked about social anxiety.

-Why are you pointing at me?

-No, he talked about social anxiety,

that some people just don't like going to movie theaters,

especially if they're disabled,

but they would happily drive there in their car.

I'm gonna talk about Richard Hollingshead at the first break,

but I just want to point out that right from the beginning,

the inventor of the drive-in told the world,

this is for the other people, the misfits,

the people who don't like treating movies

like going to church.

He made some mistakes, which I'll also go into.

But one thing he understood was that the drive-in

represented freedom.

-And so that's why we're showing "Earth vs. the Spider"?

I don't know.

-Alright, that's the worst segue ever.

-I was trying. Someone had to talk about the movie.

-Yes. And let me explain that. -Please do.

-Since we are honoring the birth of the drive-in,

I picked the year 1958 as the peak drive-in experience year.

There were 6,000 drive-ins in the country.

And if you were planning to go to the drive-in,

the first thing you had to decide was which drive-in.

And since the drive-ins were banned by the studios

from showing most first-run movies,

the managers were resorting to a lot of American International,

low-budget product.

So it was the age of the creature feature.

So to simulate the drive-in experience of 1958 --

well, to totally simulate it, you would need

a cherry-apple-red Ford Thunderbird V-8

because that was the Motor TrendCar of the Year,

and that was the best-selling car of the year,

although I would also accept an Impala,

a Mercury Super Marauder V-8.

I would not accept a Volkswagen Beetle

because, you know, two things --

A, I don't like foreign cars at the drive-in,

and, B, this was the era of big, roomy, gas-guzzling,

super-comfy mega cars.

If we're gonna be authentic, let's be authentic.

But to make your 1958 drive-in experience complete,

you would need a creature feature.

And not just any creature feature.

You would need a giant-bug feature.

-Whoo! -And the king of the giant bugs was?

Bert I. Gordon. -Sure.

-He made more "giant everything" movies

than any other producer,

and his 1958 contribution to the genre

was originally called "Earth vs. Spider,"

and then it was called "The Spider"

because they wanted to take advantage of the success

of Vincent Price in "The Fly."

And then they changed it to "Earth vs. the Spider"

when it went into second-run release.

It should really be called

"Small Town vs. Slow-Moving Fuzzy Children's Toy,"

but it would be impossible to call it that

when you have a musical score by Albert Glasser,

the king of the low-budget monster music,

whose philosophy of film music was, "Never use a flute

when you can use 12 trombones and a trumpet section."

And he conducted all his film scores himself.

And I have to presume

that all the musicians needed earplugs for this score.

If the Oxford English Dictionary ever started using audio clips,

they'll put an Albert Glasser riff

next to the word "bombastic."

Alright, we get it, we get it.

A typical creature feature at a typical drive-in in the '50s

is what we're going for.

-Exactly. -Okay. I love it.

-And I'm a baby boomer.

So in the '50s, my parents,

when I was just a little dude,

my parents would toss me in the backseat of the car

and we would drive to the Hi-D-Ho Drive-In,

and a carhop would bring us Hi-D burgers

with Hi-D sauce.

-What was in a Hi-D burger? -Um, who knows?

It was cattle country, so probably beef.

-Probably.

-We actually lived in a town called Earth.

Earth, Texas.

It was originally part of the XIT Ranch.

-Oh, the XIT Ranch. -No need for sarcasm, Darcy.

If there are any Texans around here listening,

they know what I'm talking about.

You know who else spent time at the Hi-D-Ho Drive-In

having Hi-D burgers?

-The foreman of the XIT Ranch?

-No. Mac Davis. -Probably.

-Bless his heart.

Lubbock's second-most-famous singer.

Second-most-famous singer in Lubbock.

Alright, let's get to the movie.

-You got to tell us who the first is.

-Darcy, that is self-evident. Buddy Holly.

-I should definitely do a better job

of knowing my Lubbock singers.

-You should. -I'm sorry.

-What we have here, Darcy,

is the sensitive story of two all-American teenagers --

probably not very good students

because they would have had to flunk

six or seven times to be still in high school --

who go looking for June's missing

possibly alcoholic dad

after his car is wrecked by a giant spider-web strand

stretched across the highway

so the spider can suck all the liquids out of his body

and turn him into a space alien carcass

in the cave just outside the town of River falls.

The sheriff doesn't believe their story,

but fortunately there's a science teacher

who convinces the authorities to pump 17 gazillion gallons of DDT

into the spider's face and make it go belly up.

They put the monster arachnid on display in the high school gym,

but when the local band starts rockin',

it wakes it up, and it goes rampaging through the streets.

Sure, we've seen it before,

but have we seen it with a giant spider

that kung fus innocent suburbanites with its hairy leg?

I think not.

Let's take a look at those drive-in totals and get started.

We have five dead bodies, zero breasts --

because "nakedity" was against the law in 1958.

So no deduction for that.

Drive-In Academy Award nominations

for Gene Roth as Sheriff Cagle

for not believing the kids

but for bringing a tanker truck of DDT anyway

and saying, "Bring your bug juice and let's go!"

Gene Persson as Mike, for letting June talk him

into going back into the spider cave and for telling her,

"Don't be scared. Just hold on to me."

Ed Kemmer as Professor Kingman,

for knowing about electricity and spiders,

for saying, "Man had better find out

what made this creature so big, and find out fast."

June Kenney as Carol for screaming her head off

and for saying, "Don't kid me. That's luminous algae."

And Bert I. Gordon, the director and producer

and special effects dude, for setting the all-time record

for movies featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000"

and for doing things the "Drive-In" way.

Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

-Yay.

-Okay, Darcy.

It says "1933" on this Zippo.

-It's a replica.

Maybe thousands of those in the '80s.

-Why would they put "1933" on it if it's from the '80s?

-Because that's the year that Zippo was invented.

-What a year. To be alive in 1933.

-It was the Depression. People were not happy.

-But they had to drive-in and they had the Zippo.

-The unemployment rate was 25%.

-That means three out of four people were happy.

-It was the worst economic disaster in history.

Nobody was happy.

-Warner Baxter was happy.

-Who's Warner Baxter.

-Warner Baxter was the guy

who got all the girls in the Busby Berkeley musicals,

and there were a lot of girls in those musicals.

-Well, they made Busby Berkeley musicals

because people were sad.

-He did have that lobotomy. I forgot about that. But...

-I rest my case. -That was much later, though.

In 1933, Warner Baxter was happy.

-Well, good for Warner.

Aah!

Aah!

-Carol. Hey, Carol, wait.

Hi. -Hi, Mike.

-Well, hey, wake up. This is Mike, remember?

The boy with the golden heart

and the memory of an elephant.

Look, I remembered, see?

Happy birthday, Carol.

-Thanks.

-Well, aren't you gonna open it?

-Not now.

-What's wrong?

-It's Dad. He didn't come home last night.

-So what? You know it doesn't mean a thing.

I mean, you know how he is.

-What do you mean, I know how he is?

-Well, nothing. I...

Now, where didn't he come home from last night?

-Well, he went to Springdale yesterday to buy me a present.

He said he'd be back before dinner last night,

but he still hasn't come back yet.

-Well, that doesn't mean a thing, Carol.

I mean, it isn't the first time.

-You're mean, Mike.

And I don't want your silly present either.

Here!

-The electrons jump from one electrode to the other

because of the difference in the electrical potential

between the two poles.

This one is the negative pole

from which electricity flows to the positive pole.

We call the positive pole what?

-Anode. -Anode.

-Correct. The negative pole?

-Cathode. -Cathode.

-Good.

If the voltage applied to these electrodes

is increased to a greater amplitude,

the electrical arc in turn will be greater.

The larger the arc becomes, the more dangerous it is

to anything that may be placed in its path.

Now, one thing to remember is that the flow of electrons

is always from the negative to the positive.

The reason for this is that the positive pole has

higher electrical potential.

On a simple voltaic cell,

the positive electrode is made of copper,

the negative of zinc.

A similar experiment to the one we've conducted here

was recently carried out at Wisconsin Tech,

using a voltage many thousands of times greater,

which produced a spark closely simulating actual lightning.

It isn't the voltage that creates the hazard.

It's the amount of current flow.

If a man were to come in contact with a high voltage

without a direct path to ground,

it's probable that he wouldn't be harmed.

However, if the circuit's completed to ground,

the current will flow unhampered

and cause him to be electrocuted.

Now for our next experiment --

If Mike, Carol, and Joe have finished their business.

-I can't blame people for what they think.

Even Mother says he must have run into some of his old cronies

and stayed in town.

He had his paycheck with him.

But I know it isn't true. Not this time.

He promised he'd be back.

I know something's happened to him.

-Sure it did. Maybe he ran out of gas.

He'd never meet anybody on this road.

Hold everything. What do you call that?

Funny stuff. I don't get it.

Stuck to the tree up there

and stretched across the highway between two trees.

-Who would do a thing like that?

-I don't know. I don't even know what this stuff is.

You know, it looks like there's been an accident

around here or something.

It figures.

A guy driving along last night

hits this thing stretched across the highway and...

cracks it up.

See the glass?

Wouldn't do too good for Joe's tires, would it?

You know, maybe that's what happened to your old man.

-Then where is he now?

-Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Carol.

He's probably hanging around some garage

waiting for a busted fender to get fixed.

-"To Carol with -- with love. Dad."

-Okay, so he dropped it when the accident happened.

What of it?

-If he was alright, he wouldn't leave it laying here.

And if he was in a garage, he'd call Mother and let her know.

What's that down there?

-Just an old pickup truck.

-That's what Dad was driving.

It's Dad's!

-It's a good thing he got out of it in time.

-What if he didn't?

Dad? Dad?

-What good will that do?

-Well, if he's hurt, he could still be around somewhere.

-That's right, he couldbe.

But he isn't.

Unless he went in the cave.

-Oh, he wouldn't go in there.

-I never believed those stories about the cave.

Maybe he doesn't either.

You know, it got pretty cold last night.

Suppose he couldn't walk far and wanted to,

well, keep warm until help came.

Come on, let's go take a look.

Come on.

-Find anything, Mike? -Oh. No.

-Do you really think he could be in there?

-Well, I-I don't know.

Wait a minute.

Uh, maybe I better go in.

You -- You wait here, will you?

-Be careful.

Mike. -What?

-You won't go very far, will you?

People have gone in there and never come out again.

Mike.

Mike.

-I thought I told you to stay outside.

Now, what's the idea of following me?

-Mike, I'm scared of being alone.

Do you see any sign of him?

-No, he wouldn't be right here near the opening

if he wanted to keep warm.

I'm gonna go a little further in.

I'm going with you.

Okay.

It's no use.

He doesn't seem to be in here either.

-Oh, let's not give up yet. Please, Mike.

-Who said anything about giving up?

We're just getting started.

Now, this cave is supposed to go way back

under that mountain forever.

Dad...Dad.

Dad...Dad!

Dad...Dad!

Dad...Dad!

Dad...Dad.

Dad...Dad!

-Egads.

-How will we ever find him in a place this big?

Mike, let's go this way.

Dad.

Dad!

Dad!

Dad!

Dad?

Oh, Mike!

Mike, I-I think we better go back.

-I think you're right.

-But I-I can't go without...

-Alright.

We might as well look a little further, I guess.

-Mike, I can't see.

-Are you okay, Carol?

-I think so.

What is this thing we fell in?

-I don't know. Awfully sticky, though.

Can hardly get loose.

-I know. I can't.

It's just like glue.

-You know, it's like that ropey stuff we found up on the road.

-What's that noise?

-I don't know.

This is a regular net we're on, you know that?

-There it is again.

Mike, what is it?

Mike!

-Hurry, please!

-Darcy, I think I like your spider better

than Burt Gordon's spider.

-I feel like that's insulting.

-But I'm sure Mike and Carol

would never violate the make-out rules at the drive-in.

They seem so responsible.

Stupid but responsible.

The reason they ran

these necking trailers at the drive-in --

that's what they called it, "necking" --

is that the slang term for drive-ins

all through the '50s and '60s and '70s

was "passion pits," and drive-in owners

hated the term passion pits.

They preferred "family entertainment center."

Um, did you ever make out at a drive-in, Darcy?

-Never. -I'm shocked that you didn't.

-The only movie I ever watched at a drive-in

before I started working here was "Scream 3."

-"Scream 3"?

Damn, Darcy, that's late. Don't tell anybody.

-I just did.

Crazy.

-Well, Mike and Carol

do look a little old to be in high school.

The actors were 24 and 25, respectively.

But Joe, who loans him his car,

that actor is Troy Patterson, who was 35,

and I think that may be the record

for the oldest high school student in any movie.

So Carol is played by June Kenney,

who grew up in Boston,

was a child actress, a singer, a dancer,

groomed by her mom to be a movie star.

And her dad actually gave up his construction business

so the family could move to West Hollywood in 1949

so that June could attend the Hollywood Professional School

and work as an usherette at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

And she did several plays,

which is what you do to get discovered,

and it kind of worked.

The brother of Paul Kohner, the Hollywood superagent,

spotted her in 1952,

and Paul Kohner signed her and got her a lot of TV work,

mostly in bit parts and supporting roles

on shows like "Loretta Young" and "Public Defender"

and "Whirlybirds" and "The Millionaire."

And then her big break was

when she interviewed with Roger Corman, and he liked her,

and he cast her as the lead in "Teenage Doll."

And she did such a good job in that movie

playing the bad-girl title role,

that she got leads in three more Corman movies --

"Sorority Girl,"

um, "Hot Car Girl,"

and "The Saga of the Viking Women

and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent."

And after her stint with Corman,

she made three more Burt Gordon movies,

which most people would probably consider a step down,

but only a slight step down

because Burt Gordon sometimes did work with big names.

-Okay, Darcy... -Yes.

-I know you wanted to hear a detailed biography

of Richard Hollingshead Jr, the inventor of the drive-in.

-Wow. You know me well, sir.

-'Cause I know you well. -Yes, you do.

-The biography of Richard Hollingshead Jr.

actually begins in 1888,

when Richard M. Hollingshead Sr.

used his parents' stove in Merchantville, New Jersey,

to concoct an original recipe for harness dressing.

I'm waiting for your oohs and your ahhs, Darcy.

-Oh, sorry. Ooh! Wow. Harness.

-Harness dressing is a lubricant

that you put on the leather harness

used in a horse-drawn carriage,

and it keeps the leather in good condition.

-Wow, amazing.

-New Jersey is a place where stuff gets invented. -Obviously, yes.

-Yeah, because, you know, Thomas Edison. -Yes.

-And actually movies themselves were invented in New Jersey.

West Orange, New Jersey, in the Edison laboratory.

-Yes, you already talked about that on the slasher special.

-Right, okay, so pretty soon

Richard Hollingshead Sr. is inventing all kinds

of equally boring products.

Leather polish, stove polish. carriage soap, hoof dressing,

castor axle oil, carriage top dressing.

All these products sell like crazy,

and he builds this big factory

and corporate headquarters in Camden, New Jersey,

right across the river from Philadelphia,

at a time when Camden was just booming

with innovative new companies like Campbell's Soup.

-You've talked about that too. -Right.

Okay, so the Hollingshead family becomes rich,

and little Richard Jr. is born in 1900

in Riverton, New Jersey,

which is a wealthy suburb of Camden.

They have a famous yacht club there on the Delaware River.

And while Richard Jr. is growing up,

his daddy transitions from horse stuff to car stuff

and introduces the Whiz brand of auto products.

You can still buy Whiz brand products today.

They're just as boring as the horse-drawn-carriage products.

But Richard Jr. leaves home at age 14

to attend the Manlius Military Academy in New York

and then comes home just as World War I is ending.

And so he becomes a foreman at Hollingshead Chemical,

and he ends up supervising 98 automotive products,

running sales for all the polishes and soaps

and cleaning agents, and floor wax and insecticides.

These Hollingsheads are just inventing new chemicals

left and right, churning them out at the plant

and dominating that business.

And then the Depression hits,

and Richard Jr. is trying to figure out

how the company is gonna survive.

And he notices that there are two things

that most people will not give up, no matter how poor they get.

One is their car, and one is going to the movies.

And so he's thinking about this when his mom mentions to him

that she doesn't really like going to the movies

because she's too large for the chairs.

She was quite a large woman.

-And Richard decides if people could watch the movie

from their cars, many more people would attend.

So he goes to work like a true scientist.

He nails a giant sheet to a tree in his backyard,

and he mounts a Kodak projector on the hood of his car,

and he starts experimenting with sound --

thanks to RCA Victor, which was based in Camden at the time.

They were more than willing to help him out.

And he figured out the precise angle that the front tires

of one car would have to be raised in order to see

over the car in front of it.

And he became obsessed with this idea.

And in 1930,

he received an actual patent for a drive-in theater.

And by 1933, he was ready to go.

And, um, he only made two mistakes, as far as I can tell.

One mistake was that he bought land right by the airport.

So Camden Central Airport

was the airport serving Philadelphia,

the third-largest city in America.

And then the second mistake he made

is that he edited the movies.

He cut the movies.

Because one of the problems that drive-ins have --

they've always had this problem --

is that they can't start showing movies until it gets dark.

So indoor theaters might be able to show a movie

eight times a day,

but drive-ins only have one good time

to show the movie -- sunset.

And then a second showing.

And then if they're really lucky

and the running time is short on the first two movies,

they get that third showing.

So Hollingshead, he wanted that third showing.

His showtimes were 8:30, 10:00, and 11:30.

So when he advertised the theater,

he told people the movies were "abridged features

with all dull, uninteresting parts omitted."

And people never like it when you monkey with content.

And one more thing --

He mounted three giant RCA Victor speakers

inside the screen, and they worked pretty well,

but wind would be a problem with them.

It wasn't until after World War II that RCA developed

the in-car speakers that hung on the poles, you know.

So his cost of construction was $60,000.

He had a 500-car capacity.

And he opened with a bang.

That first year, people came from all over the country

to see this place.

But after 14 months, he gave up.

The economics just didn't work.

The studios were afraid of him,

so they refused to sell him their best movies,

but they still charged top price for the B movies.

400 bucks every time you showed one.

So, for example, the movie on opening night

was "Wives Beware,"

which was an American retitle of a forgettable British comedy

called "Two White Arms," starring Adolphe Menjou

and a bunch of sophisticates in tuxedos.

So Hollingshead couldn't charge high enough admission price

to turn a profit.

He charged a quarter for each car

and a quarter for each person.

And he had not yet discovered the basic principle

of running a drive-in,

which is you don't make money on the movie,

you make money on the food.

And I'll tell the rest of Richard's story

at the next break.

But in the meantime,

let's get back to this ripoff of "Tarantula," which -- whoops!

I mean the original Bert I. Gordon creature feature,

"Earth vs. the Spider."

-Yay! -Roll it.

And you know the other thing the drive-in is good for --

besides making out and smoking -- is drugs.

-In towns where weed is -- -What?

-Well, some towns weed is still illegal, you know.

But what cop is gonna come to your car

in the middle of the drive-in movie?

It's a public place, but it's a safe place.

-I'm aware. -You're aware?

How could you possibly know that?

-"Scream 3."

-"Scream 3." Okay. Alright.

Your first time. You're such a rebel, Darcy.

What?

♪ I am the captain of the good ship Pleasure ♪

♪ Come join my crew in search of a treasure ♪

-♪ The treasure has been sighted from the old crow's nest ♪

♪ Be prepared to find what you like best ♪

♪ There's candy for you of quality fine ♪

♪ In fact, an assortment that is so divine ♪

♪ The soda pop is cold, just name your brand ♪

♪ The ice cream is delicious, and it's right at hand ♪

♪ If it's popcorn you want, well, take my cue ♪

♪ We have the very finest in the world for you ♪

♪ Just steer a course straight up the aisle ♪

♪ We'll have an intermission for a little while ♪

-I can't say for sure without having it analyzed,

but it does look like a large piece of natural silk.

-What did we tell you?

-But that doesn't necessarily prove there's a giant spider.

That part's pretty hard to swallow.

-But we saw it.

-Believe me,

my son is not in the habit of lying, Mrs. Kingman.

-That isn't what Helen meant.

Whether you believe their story or not,

the man to see about it is the sheriff.

-Yeah, sure. See the sheriff? We did.

-He didn't believe them.

Sheriff's office.

Oh, yes. Mr. Kingman. What can I do for you?

Oh, don't go yet.

It's only that high school teacher.

Well, you know these teenagers as well as I do, Mr. Kingman.

Yeah. What will they pull next, huh?

Spiders.

I told them to bring me one, and I'd believe it.

-I can't say I blame you, Sheriff.

Naturally, I didn't call you up

to get you to investigate abnormal insect life.

But Flynn's still missing, I believe.

The youngsters found traces of him out there.

You may be doing yourself a favor if you looked into that.

-Well, you took the words right out of my mouth, Mr. Kingman.

The fact of the matter is, I've got my deputy Sanders out

rounding up a search party right now.

Get half a dozen men. Spencer, Haskel,

maybe old Jake, anyone else that isn't busy.

Bring them here and I'll swear them in.

Well, I'll need those two kids with us to point things out.

And, uh, if you want to come along, too, that's fine.

Oh, don't you worry.

We'll bring rifles in case we run into that spider.

Anything else on your mind?

-Well, speaking of spiders,

are you sure rifles are just the thing?

Insects have a pretty simple nervous system, Sheriff.

You could plug holes in one all day and never hit a vital spot.

If you want to be on the safe side,

call the pest control people in Springdale.

Have them send out all the DDT they can find.

-Good.

A giant spider. What next?

Well, bring your bug juice and let's go.

-What are we using it on?

-Does it make any difference?

-Well, I've got to mix the DDT

according to what you want killed.

-What do I tell him, professor?

Uh, spiders?

-A 2 to 4% solution is the usual dose.

-Make it 50.

-Which way, kids? -Straight ahead.

-Some place.

Make a nice Elk's Hall, you know that?

You think we'll find that girl's pa

in here alive? -We might.

Spiders have a habit of stunning their prey with venom

and storing them in a silk bag

till they're ready to feed on them.

-Then they eat them up, I suppose.

-Not quite.

They drain the liquid from the bodies,

leaving only the skin and bones.

-Man, what a mind you've got.

Alright, let's look for Flynn.

And don't lose sight of the man next to you.

No sense in anyone getting lost.

Just a minute. This is a waste of time.

You know something?

I haven't seen a spider yet, and I don't think we will.

-You will if he's still there.

-It'd be just our luck if he'd moved into the next county.

-Well, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

There's something in here, alright.

You naturally expect to find a certain amount

of wildlife in a cave -- tats, mice, bats, and so on.

But you don't.

They've been frightened out.

Ahh!

The wildlife, eh, Kingman?

That's about as big as they come, I'd say.

-I wouldn't handle it if I were you.

It might have rabies.

-There. It's buried.

-You want to say a few words over it, Sheriff?

-It's her father.

-Uh, when you get back to town,

make out a coroner's report.

Just put down Jack Flynn as the name

and the cause of death, uh...

-It was the spider drained all the liquid out of his body.

-Uh, just put down cause unknown

and let the coroner worry about the rest.

That's the trouble with you eggheads.

You jump to conclusions.

I know what I see, and I see a dead man.

But, uh, I don't see any spider.

-We can do something about that. Mike...

Where was the web?

-Right through there.

Wait a minute.

You don't know what you're doing.

You -- You can't just walk in there.

-Well, why not?

-You find any giant spiders, Sheriff?

-Oh, shut up! Get that DDT in here, quick!

-Come on.

Here, you better put these on.

-I suggest you spray that whole cavern

so it'll get it when it comes back.

-Help me! Help me!

Aah! Aah!

-Boy, what a pair.

They go so good together.

Super dog

and your favorite cold beverage in a Texas-sized schooner.

Get them now at our concession stand.

-♪ Aaaaaahhh ♪

-Hold it! Romeo.

It's time for Hires -- that real old-time root beer.

-Since 1876. For pleasure and thirst.

-You'll taste the difference.

The flavor of actual roots, bark and herbs.

♪ Herbs to all your taste desires ♪

♪ For purity and better flavor, stop ♪

♪ And have a Hires ♪

-Yes, youngsters, oldsters all agree.

Here's a drink for all the family.

From the bottle, fountain and the keg, too,

it's real old-time Hires root beer for pleasure and thirst.

Hires to you.

Patronize the refreshment stand here for popcorn, sandwiches,

candy, ice cream. -And Hires root beer.

-Well, they don't write 'em like that anymore, do they?

Doesn't it seem like the science teacher believes in

the giant spider just a little too quickly?

And doesn't it seem

like the sheriff is a little too blasé about it?

You know, when I first watched this, I thought,

"How can the giant spider already be dead

at the 25-minute mark?

There must be lots more giant spiders coming."

But, no, Bert Gordon had other things in mind.

And the second-act turning point

is one of the greatest moments in exploitation movie history.

Oddly enough,

the spider behavior that they're talking about

is pretty accurate, scientifically speaking.

The screenplay was actually written

by George Worthing Yates, who was a novelist.

He started writing "B" movies

because his uncle was Herbert Yates,

founder of Republic Studios.

And he had already worked for Bert Gordon

on three other cheapie features --

"The Amazing Colossal Man," "Attack of the Puppet People,"

and "War of the Colossal Beast."

And Yates had done his homework.

There is a tarantula called the Goliath Birdeater,

and it lives in the South American rainforest,

and it is the biggest spider in the world.

It's huge. It hisses. It has barbed skin.

It has enormous fangs capable of penetrating the skulls

of small animals. -Dang.

-It has venom that dissolves the tissue in the brain

of its victim, so it can be slurped up like a slushie.

It eats birds, mice, frogs, lizards.

Leg span on that sucker is 11 inches.

So Yates was following the science

when he said Jack Flynn got all the fluids sucked out of him,

which is why he ended up looking like a shriveled-up

space alien there in the cave.

And by the way, there's a thank you to --

at the beginning of the movie to the famous Carlsbad Caverns,

because Bert Gordon wanted you to think

that they went to the Carlsbad Caverns to shoot this movie.

What happened is that Bert went there by himself

and set up cameras for very long exposures,

30 to 40 minutes due to the low lighting.

And then he simply pasted those still photos

as a matte on the negative, and he set the camera

so that the actors could move around in this very narrow area.

If Mike and Janet

sometimes seem like they don't know where they are

or they don't know what they're seeing,

that's because they didn't know where they were

or what they were seeing.

Very minimal camera movement when you work that way.

He basically had to just lock it down

anytime actors were inside the cave.

Alright.

Um, I wanted to finish the Richard Hollingshead story.

As I said earlier,

Hollingshead had a patent on the drive-in theater.

You had to pay him a license fee

if you wanted to open a drive-in.

And that's why,

even though he closed his own drive-in after just 14 months,

he thought he would still get rich by collecting

royalties on other people's drive-ins,

and other drive-ins did indeed prosper.

Hollingshead sold his screen and all his equipment

to a guy who wanted to open a drive-in in Union, New Jersey,

and that drive-in held 1,400 cars

and stayed in business until 1983.

But even before that,

a hotel owner named Wilson Shankweiler

admired Hollingshead's drive-in

and decided he wanted to be the first drive-in owner

in the state of Pennsylvania.

So in 1934,

he opened Shankweiler's Auto Park on a plot of land

behind his inn and restaurant in Orefield, Pennsylvania,

and that drive-in is still operating today.

Remember when we went to Shankweiler's?

-Yes, it was super cute. -1934.

I mean, a couple of years back,

we were the spokespeople for the Drive-In Owners of America,

so we wanted to see the oldest continuously operating drive-in,

and I don't think it's any bigger today

than it was in 1934.

Still very much a small-town drive-in,

old-fashioned concession stand.

So Wilson Shankweiler paid his licensing fee

to Richard Hollingshead.

But the other drive-ins that opened prior to World War II

didn't necessarily send in their checks.

Um, the drive-in developed in Massachusetts,

Ohio and especially Southern California,

where the Pico Drive-In opened at the corner

of Pico and Westwood,

which is mind-blowing for anybody living in L.A. today

to think there was a drive-in at Pico and Westwood,

one of the busiest intersections in the country.

Uh, the land today is occupied by the UCLA Research Park.

Anyway, by 1942, there were 95 drive-in theaters in 27 states.

And some of those drive-ins paid royalties to Hollingshead,

and some of them refused to pay royalties.

But then after the war,

there was a huge boom in drive-in building --

820 drive-ins by the year 1948

thanks to those in-car speakers that RCA developed.

And so the Loews theater chain,

which went all the way back to nickelodeon days

and was very powerful at the time,

they decided to challenge Hollingshead's patent.

And the litigation on that went on for years.

And in 1951,

there was a final ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals

that there was nothing novel about Hollingshead's idea.

Therefore, the patent never should have been issued.

Therefore, he was out of luck.

So I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, you know,

making drive-ins cheaper to operate was a good thing.

On the other hand,

Richard Hollingshead really did popularize the idea.

He talked about this the rest of his life, not with bitterness,

but with kind of regret.

And he died in 1975 at the age of 75.

A few days ago, we went to his grave.

130 acres of lush greenery watched over by wild geese.

Among the folks buried here,

multiple U.S. senators, several Civil War heroes,

the heirs to the Campbell Soup dynasty,

and Charlie Rice, the jazz drummer.

On the edge of a quiet pond called Crystal Lake,

the American poet Walt Whitman was laid to rest.

But it's not why we're here.

This is a pilgrimage

to give our thanks to the greatest New Jerseyite

of them all, Richard Hollingshead, Jr.

Around this massive granite tombstone

are 10 Hollingsheads,

virtually the entire chemical empire of Camden, New Jersey.

But there's only one Hollingshead

that lives in our hearts.

We at the last drive-in honor the man

who gave us the first drive-in.

-Your continued patronage is very, very welcome.

-So, Darcy, I think you have to take over.

I'm...

I'm getting too emotional.

-Oh.

Back to the movie.

-Thank you.

Sometimes the people who do the most good in the world

get the least credit.

-Carol.

You think it'd be better if I talked to your mother first?

-No, thanks. I can do it.

-I really believe you can.

-The box with the bracelet.

-Are you sure you had it?

-It was in this pocket.

Maybe I dropped it in there.

-You can't go back there now. The place is full of gas.

-We'll come back some other time together.

Okay?

-And, Haskel, when you get back to town,

tell old Warren to get right out here and board this entrance up.

-Right, Sheriff.

-Well, if you do, I'd suggest you put a big, wide door in it.

The whole world is gonna want to come here

and take a look at that thing down there.

-What's your idea?

That the town should charge admission?

-That isn't what I was thinking of.

You know what we eggheads are like, Sheriff.

We want to know why this,

how come that, what about the other?

It's a matter of scientific interest

to find out what made that creature tick.

-Well, it's too late now. It's dead.

-The spider is.

But not the principle that caused it to grow.

That's still for us to discover.

-Well, why bother? -We have to put an end to it.

Otherwise, there may be more giant spiders

coming into the world.

They may even be hatching from their eggs

in some remote spot right now.

Do you realize how easy it would be

for them to overcome us humans?

Then, instead of being the hunters, we'd become the hunted.

They'd be our masters. They'd live on us.

-What would you suggest the sheriff's office

of River Falls do about it, Mr. Kingman?

-Bring that spider up into the daylight

where it can be studied properly.

-Well, if you want to do it, go ahead.

But leave me out.

It's not my job, and I don't want any part of it.

-Okay, Sheriff.

-Ugly creature, isn't it?

-I can think of more suitable subjects for my camera club

to take pictures of.

What are you gonna do with them?

Send it to the papers?

-No, just the opposite.

One big advantage of living in an isolated mountain community

like River Falls is not having reporters crawling

all over the place...yet.

I'm gonna send these photographs along

with a complete report to Dr. Bergin, State U.

Nancy, would you get me some close-ups, please?

-Oh, sure.

-Good old Bergin.

I had him for biology my junior year.

You know, I know exactly what he's gonna say.

Gentlemen, this is a perfect specimen.

Exquisite, exquisite.

-I can't quite appreciate the humor in it myself.

I saw it when it was still alive.

I expect the university is gonna want it

for experiment and dissection.

Frankly, I'll feel relieved when they come

and take it off my hands.

-I can't say I blame you.

It is a little unhandy.

-Took a house mover from Riverdale to get it here.

It cost me half my savings.

Besides wanting my money back,

I'd like to get the high school board off my neck.

-Suppose the university doesn't go for it?

-They'd better.

Do you think I'm going through all this bother merely

because I've come across a scientific wonder?

Not a bit.

Somewhere in that hideous carcass are the genes

that control organic growth.

Man had better find out what made this creature so big

and find out fast,

or we're all gonna be in pretty serious trouble.

Usually, if nature produces a freak,

it dies immediately because it can't adapt itself to life.

It's what we ordinarily call a bird spider.

The wonder of it is it's perfect, Fraser.

Perfect in every detail.

Fraser, you hurt?!

-Are you sure that thing's dead?

-Sure it's dead.

-Well, how come it kicked me?

-It's just a muscular contraction.

Galvani's reaction, it's called. It often happens.

-Not to me, it doesn't.

If it can do that when it's dead...

I sure hate to meet it somewhere alive.

-Don't, Carol.

-I can't help it, Mother.

-I know.

I loved him, too.

-I keep thinking it was my fault.

-How could it be?

-It never would have happened

if he hadn't gone to get me that present.

Now I've lost it.

-You mustn't think of it that way, Carol.

-Why did I have to drop it in that cave?

I wanted so much to keep it, Mother!

-Forget about it now, dear.

You have your homework to get ready for tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot.

Mike called you twice before you got home from school

and said he would be at his father's theater.

-Oh. Thanks, Mother.

Hello, Mr. Simpson. Can I talk to Mike?

-Mike? -Hmm?

-You're wanted on the phone.

-Okay, thanks.

Hello? -Hi, Mike, this is Carol.

You said you'd take me out to the cave to find the bracelet.

-You don't mean right now, do you?

-If you can get away. Please, Mike.

-Carol, not today.

My dad just got in a new picture,

and I haven't even seen it yet.

Something about puppet people. It sounds pretty wild.

-Please.

-Okay, Carol, I think I can borrow Joe's car again.

-Only don't come by the house for me.

I don't want Mother to know I'm going out there.

-Alright, I'll be --

I'll be down at the corner in 15 minutes.

-I'll be waiting.

-I'll see you, Dad! I got a date now.

-Where will you be?

I said, where will you be if I want you?

-Hey, Joe!

-Hi.

-Hey, you remember that 5 bucks I loaned you?

-Sure. It was last Christmas, and I paid it back.

-Oh, well, all I mean is I'm your friend.

You know that. -You want to borrow 5 bucks.

-Oh, no. No.

Could Carol and I use your wagon for a couple of hours?

-Again?

What's the big deal?

-Well, what do you care?

Look. We're friends, Joe. Just remember that.

-Why don't you come to the rehearsal?

-Look, my mouth is getting tired.

Are we friends or aren't we?

-Okay, okay. The car's in the driveway.

You'll find the keys in the -- -Glove compartment.

Where else? -Why do I have so many friends?

-Thanks, Joe. -Sure.

-Come on, Joe, we got problems.

It's off limits, I told you.

-Look, we gotta get in. The dance is tomorrow night.

Well, the cats will have a blast if we don't swing solid.

Hey, let's get the janitor.

Maybe he'll open the pad.

-Oh, not with Mr. Eight Leg still in there.

-Well, they can't hang us for trying, can they?

Hugo! -Hugo!

-Hey, Hugo! -Hugo!

-Who's calling Hugo?

Well, now, what's the matter here?

-We want in.

We've got to develop our talents.

-Well, you'll have to use the auditorium until further notice.

Principal's orders.

-No can do. The drama class is there.

-I can't help that.

Kingman is just here checking up.

Told me particular not to let nobody in.

-Well, Kingman didn't mean us. He meant squares.

We're the coolest zoologists in town.

-No, sirree.

The moving people are coming here tonight to move

that thing to the university.

You can rehearse all you want to afterwards.

-In the dead of night?

Hugo, we're only little kids.

Mommy wouldn't let us.

-Well... alright, you monsters.

But now I want you to behave yourself.

Don't monkey with that thing.

-Dig that?

Now, the first guy who steps on daddy longlegs

is gonna hear from Hugo. -Yeah.

-Crazy.

-It's big, alright.

Hey, maybe the drama class is through with the auditorium.

Let's blow this place. It gives me the creeps.

-What is it, Superman? Chickening out?

-Well, certainly not.

-Well, then, let's stop goofing off, huh?

Now, guys, let's start with the opening number.

And don't go to sleep on it.

Play with everything you've got.

Loud enough to wake the dead, huh?

Play it good and loud.

Okay.

-Hey, what goes on here?

-It's a drama class. What else?

-Alright. Either come in or get out.

But don't stand there and scream.

We're rehearsing.

1, 2, 3, 4.

-Well, okay. Let's go.

-What's gotten into you kids?!

-Beat it! It's alive!

-Hello? Hello. Hello.

-Hello.

-Spider! The spider!

Hello?

Hello?

-Anyone comes for me, I'll be at Sanders' funeral.

I'll get it. Great guy Pete Sanders was.

You've got plenty to live up to.

Sheriff's office. Cagle speaking.

What?

Alright, Mr. Kingman, I'll meet you at the school.

You stay here and answer the phone.

-Helen.

-What is it, Art? -It'd be a good idea

if you stayed inside the house for a while.

-Oh, well, I was just gonna take the baby for his checkup

and do some shopping for dinner.

-Stay in the house, Helen, no matter what.

I'll be back as soon as I can. -Oh, w--

-♪ I'm Rodeo Joe, big star of the show ♪

♪ Oh, I'm strong and I'm spry ♪

♪ Yippee-ay, yippee-i ♪

♪ 'Cause I drink t-o-d-d-y ♪

-Yes, Toddy.

The chocolate malt in a can

that tastes as good or better than the kind

you get at your favorite soda fountain.

Made with rich real milk, not powdered milk.

-Man, oh, man, it's Toddy for me.

-Me too.

-Me three.

-Yes. Cold or hot, it hits the spot.

So toddle to the bar. Take it back to the car.

Get that chocolate malted Toddy.

Toddy pleases everybody.

-Mmm. Delicious.

-Have a Toddy, Darcy. -I'm good. Thank you.

-All of those snipes, which are those short drive-in ads,

are courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive.

They found all these old drive-in ads

for us to sprinkle through the show tonight.

Did you notice that the "Amazing Colossal Man" is playing

at the local theater in River Falls?

And Mike doesn't really want to take Carol back to the cave,

because "Attack of the Puppet People" just arrived,

and he needs to watch that right away.

-You cannot blame him for that.

-I guess you're right. He's working at a theater

that only shows Bert I. Gordon films.

And the only thing that can revive a giant spider

that's been gassed with 47 million gallons of DDT

is...godless rock 'n' roll. -Whoo!

-The creature was literally brought to life by rock.

Am I right about that, Darcy?

-Those are some swinging times, baby.

Rock 'n' roll. -And as they told Mr. Ziffel --

Did you notice that the janitor is Mr. Ziffel

from "Petticoat Junction" and "The Beverly Hillbillies,"

the caretaker of Arnold the Pig?

-Who would not notice that?

-That is Hank Patterson,

who played the cantankerous old coot in a slew of Westerns

and had the reputation

of being the hardest-drinking actor in Hollywood,

by the way.

But Joe, the 35-year-old high school student

who is also the conductor of the rock band --

Did rock-'n'-roll bands in the ''50s have conductors?

-Apparently, yes.

-As he explains, you know,

the cats won't have a blast if we don't swing solid.

Is that some of that hepcat teen talk from the ''50s?

-I feel like that was Bert Gordon's idea

of how teens talk.

-Uh, anyway, they aroused the beast.

And Sheriff Cagle -- I have a question about Sheriff Cagle.

Does he know he's the sheriff?

It seems like all he does is make phone calls to Springdale

and make spider jokes.

But Sheriff Cagle is played by Gene Roth,

who played a lot of heavies in the "Three Stooges" films,

started out doing bit parts in the silent era,

and then he became a movie-theater manager

and then a builder and then an installer of pipe organs.

And then he got rediscovered in Hollywood in 1943

while he was there on business.

And a director needed somebody on short notice

to play a Nazi SS officer.

And so Cagle nailed that part,

and he got an agent and became the go-to guy

when you needed a working-class character actor.

He ended up doing 281 roles before retiring in the '70s.

Um, and then I guess we need to talk about Ed Kemmer

as the science teacher, professor Art Kingman.

They have full tenured professors

at this high school in River Falls.

Uh, Ed Kemmer was best known for starring

in a TV series called "Space Patrol."

181 episodes of "Space Patrol" between 1950 and 1955.

As Commander Buzz Corry.

It was one of those live shows, uh, aimed at kids

that was actually a very early version of "Star Trek."

In fact, Gene Roddenberry said

it was his inspiration for "Star Trek."

But Kemmer was typecast as a child actor

or an actor for children,

and that's how he ended up doing movies

like "Giant from the Unknown" and "Earth Versus the Spider."

Always trying to break into adult movies.

-Whoo!

-But he was also the life model for the Prince

in Disney's animated movie "Sleeping Beauty."

-Shut your mouth.

-You have to be regarded as pretty damn good looking

to be the model for the Prince in a Disney movie.

What do you think, Darcy?

-A prince? That's Prince Phillip, man.

That's theprince. That's the ultimate honor.

Thank you. -That is a handsome guy.

Okay. -It's a hot dude.

-Well, now that we've told the story of Richard Hollingshead

and the first drive-in,

let's move on to the heyday of the drive-in

in the ''50s and the ''60s, when, as I said earlier,

there were about 6,000 drive-ins operating in America

because after World War II, people wanted to party.

And when it came to movies,

they had two choices -- the downtown movie palace.

But who wants to watch a movie in a palace?

It's stuffy. It's high class.

It requires you to get dressed up.

Watching a movie in the downtown movie palace

was like attending the opera.

Watching a movie at the drive-in

was like gonna the state fair.

Maybe that's why the drive-ins never got any respect

from the big Hollywood studios.

They were constantly being told

that they could not book the biggest releases,

and if they did occasionally get a major release,

they had to agree to take 10 lesser movies in return.

There were lots of newspapers

that refused to take drive-ins ads.

I'm not sure why, they just considered them disreputable.

A lot of drive-ins advertised free admission for children

under 12, and the indoor theaters hated that policy,

and they actually tried to get the practice banned.

But the drive-in operators

fought back by making their shows better

than the indoor shows.

Because let me just read --

I got here -- from this partial list of things

that you could do at a drive-in in the '50s and '60s

that you could not do at an indoor theater.

The drive-ins had children's playgrounds, train rides,

concession stands with full meals,

in-car heaters available for rent or sale,

carhops pushing mobile concessions carts, pony rides,

boat rides, talent shows, animal shows,

miniature golf courses, shuffleboard courts,

swimming pools, fishing ponds, trapeze artists, clowns,

car washing while you watch the movie, laundry service,

bottle-warming service, drug counters,

book vending machines, vaudeville acts, dancing,

fireworks and there was no discrimination at the drive-in.

The first theaters to desegregate in the South

were the drive-ins.

When Blacks were still directed to the third balcony

in the downtown movie palace,

they were just welcomed at the drive-in,

as were smokers, the elderly,

the disabled and children

who were often shunned at indoor theaters.

So if you wanted to see democracy in action,

all you needed to do was head down to the area drive-in,

which was usually located right at the edge of the city.

So the urban people drove out

and the farmers and ranchers drove in.

And America met at the drive-in.

At the Gemini Drive-in in Dallas,

where I staged the first-ever world drive-in movie festival,

John Wayne stood on top of the concession stand

at the world premiere of "True Grit"

and fired off his six guns to the delight of 10,000 people.

So try doing that at an indoor theater.

Um, and now we return to that drive-in classic of 1958,

"Earth Versus the Spider."

Roll it.

Did I oversell it?

-No. You made me super appreciate it.

-In the days of the biker movie,

the Bandidos would roll into the Gemini,

sometimes after riding hundreds of miles

from West Texas and the Bandidos, at the time,

I don't know if this is still true,

but that was probably the most multi-ethnic biker gang

in the history of motorcycles.

They had Mexicans, they had Native Americans,

they had rednecks,

they had Cajuns, and they loved William Smith, the Biller.

I don't know how many biker movies William Smith made,

but I guarantee you the Bandidos saw every damn one of them,

and they spent a lot of gas money making sure that they did.

-Your point?

-My only point is it's possible to have institutions

like the drive-in that include everybody, 100% of society.

I know that's a minority opinion everywhere except here.

Most places. But let's not get serious.

That's not what we do.

-Maybe somebody held up the bank.

-I don't see anything.

Where are they running?

-Get inside!

Take cover!

-This is Sheriff Cagle speaking.

How's that call to the capital coming?

Well, hurry it up, we want action here.

-Get off the streets!

-Hello? Hello.

Sheriff Cagle, River Falls.

Hello?

-Get off the streets!

-Hello? Hello?

Operator, I've been cut off.

Okay, sister.

Well, that's that.

The long-distance lines are down.

-I've got my motorcycle out back.

-How long would it take you to get to Springdale on it?

-Maybe an hour, maybe less.

-Go ahead, and get the governor on the phone.

Tell him we've got to have troops from Fort Brown.

Also, flame throwers and artillery.

Tell him we need -- DDT?

-No good, that stuff just stunned it.

Alright, Dave, on your way.

-Wait, Dave!

-Alright, Dave, go ahead.

-Yeah, it's still too soon for the troops to be here.

-I know.

I thought they might fly a few men in with whirly birds.

-Give them time.

-Hey, isn't that Jake?

Wait a minute, Jake!

Where to, Jake? -I'm evacuating.

That darn monster run me out of house and home!

-Which way was it heading? -Towards Maple Street.

I've had it!

-Maple Street?

Helen.

-I think that's just right now.

Come on, just a little bit.

-Helen!

Helen!

-Oh, darling!

-You'll be alright, Helen, it's gone away.

Help should be here soon. Now, take it easy.

Just take it easy.

-Sheriff?

Any news from Springdale yet?

-Not a word.

Good.

Kingman says the spider's headed south,

along the old Higgins Road.

-At least the town's safe.

-Mike, will you help me look for it?

-Yeah, okay.

This isn't getting us anywhere.

Why don't I buy you another bracelet?

-It wouldn't be the same at all.

-Besides, I'm broke.

Well, when was the last time you remember having it?

-Well, it was just before I fell in the web.

I was up there, and then I stumbled.

If I dropped it then, it should be around here somewhere.

Mike. -Find it?

-No, but there's an opening down here.

Do you think it could have fallen through?

-Hey, it looks like there's another cave down there.

Maybe we can get into it through this opening over here.

Come on.

Wow, there must be hundreds of these caves down here.

Hello!

-Look for my bracelet. -Oh, I am looking.

Here it is!

I guess you're happy now, huh? -Oh, I am, no kidding.

-Good, then I guess we can go home.

Let's see, which way?

-That way.

-Okay, only this time,

let me keep this thing for you till we get out, okay?

Come on.

-In the zoo, in your nightmares,

in the deep, in your favorite horror movies...

But not in your living room, on your TV.

Don't let pay TV be the monster in your living room.

Pay TV and cable TV companies

are seeking the right to charge you

for the very programs you now get free.

If you want to stop pay TV and save free television,

sign the petition in the lobby of this theater.

Let your lawmakers know how you feel

in the fight against pay TV and cable TV.

-I'm not sure why the drive-in owners

got their panties in a bunch about cable TV.

But I think it had something

to do with the pay TV people threatening

to get all the first-run movies

and -- Oh, my God, can it be true --

allow people to watch new movies at home.

This is actually a continuing fight

between exhibitors and distributors

that ultimately resulted in a compromise.

Blockbusters get released in theaters.

Everything else is up for grabs,

and drive-ins ceased to be part of the equation

years ago in that fight.

A lot of reasons are put forth to explain the decline

of the drive-in in the '60s and the '70s.

Premium cable TV is just one of them.

One big one is simply Daylight Savings Time.

Daylight Savings Time was introduced in 1966.

So then, depending on their latitude, drive-ins that are

already trying to squeeze in two showings,

might have to wait till 8:00 or 9:00 to start the first movie.

In Washington state, they're gonna have to wait till 9:30.

Another factor was the end of the baby boom era,

so there weren't so many moms and dads

in need of a safe haven for their crying children.

But in my opinion,

there were two big things that changed it all.

One was the invention of the multiplex,

and most of those were located at shopping malls.

So you could spend the whole day at the mall

and then have your pick of any of 6 or 12

or 24 movies that were right next door.

In other words,

you no longer had to drive downtown to the movie palace.

And then the other thing was population growth.

As cities grew,

real estate on the edge of the city became very valuable.

And what could be more valuable than plots of land

that are hundreds of acres but had a single owner.

So Walmart could buy that land

and be done with real estate acquisition.

You know, Walmart became the number-one killer

of drive-ins starting in the early '70s.

And then in the '80s,

people started buying Toyotas and Beetles and small cars.

And you can no longer aardvark in your car

without cramping your sticky wicket.

Do you know what I mean? I think you do.

-We do. -And so by 1990,

the number of drive-ins dipped under the 1,000 mark

for the first time since 1950.

But anybody who knows the motto of this show

also knows that that's not the end of the story.

So I will talk about this some more at the next break.

And in the meantime,

we have a rampaging giant spider in a town

where the sheriff mostly stays on the phone to Springdale,

and Springdale has him on hold.

He's trying to get to the governor

to order soldiers from Fort Brown,

but apparently he can't call the governor directly.

He has to send deputies on motorcycles

as errand boys to Springdale.

And it all takes place on the main street

that you should recognize.

You should recognize that main street,

because it's been the main street in dozens of movies,

if not hundreds of movies.

The most famous being probably "Back to the Future."

That's the main street of "Back to the Future."

And of course, I'm talking about Courthouse Square

on the Universal Pictures backlot.

Bert Gordon got two very memorable images

during the rampage.

One is that crying baby in the middle of the street,

but they don't really follow up on that.

And the other one is the screaming woman

with her dress caught in the car door as the point-of-view

Spidercam gets closer and closer,

ready to bite her head off,

and it never occurs to her

that maybe if she just opened the car door,

she could run away,

because it seems to be a very slow-moving spider.

Uh, it depends on surprise attacks,

like the time it uses its hairy leg to terrify Kingman's wife.

That's Sally Fraser from "It Conquered the World,"

working her scream-queen muscles

when she encounters that withered spider leg prop

that attacks her.

Oh, this was actually the last Bert Gordon

giant special effects film of the 1950s.

He would do it again in 1965 with "Village of the Giants."

I think Bert realized he had milked this gimmick to the max

because he had three giant menace films released

in a single year,

especially since he knew giant spiders were kind of going out

of fashion because three years earlier,

Universal had released Jack Arnold's "Tarantula,"

which is frankly better than this movie.

Not that I don't find this flick entertaining.

And then "The Incredible Shrinking Man" also revolves

around a giant spider.

None of those three spiders were as good as your spider, Darcy.

And correct me if I'm wrong,

but was the giant spider muttering the word "home"

over and over as it walked back into the cave?

Darcy? -Yeah, I think it was.

-It's a proto trope. Is that a word?

It's E.T., a quarter of a century early.

Home. Back to the movie. -Shut up.

-People who collect goofs in movies,

you know, apparent mistakes in the movies,

they like to point out

that the science teacher only dials four digits

when using that rotary phone.

But in 1958,

if you lived in a small town,

your phone number might only have four digits.

Because when I was a kid in Texarkana, Arkansas,

we had five digits, we had a 5-digit number.

And I think Falls River or River Falls --

What is the name of the town in this movie?

What's the name of the town? -River Falls.

-River Falls.

River Falls is smaller than Texarkana, so four digits.

You know the Golden Gate Casino in Vegas?

-Yes 'cause you talk about it. -Okay.

Well, the Golden Gate Casino was the first place in Las Vegas

to get a phone in 1907,

so their phone number was one.

-That's amazing.

-And they still have the phone there.

Unfortunately, the phone dial had not yet been invented,

so you had to pick up the receiver and say, "One, please."

-Oh, wow.

-And Lily Tomlin would connect you or whoever.

-Pizza.

Real Italian pizza.

Crispy crust loaded with spicy tomato sauce.

Mozzarella. Parmesan. Gigante. Provolone.

Cheddar, Romano cheeses.

Add mushroom or pepperoni.

Fresh ingredients.

Fresh baked.

Pepe's Pizza.

At the concession stand now.

It's ready when you are.

-We've got enough spiders around here.

Well, help oughta be here soon now.

Sheriff Cagle again, sister.

How soon before those long-distance lines

to Springdale are gonna get fixed?

Another two hours, maybe.

Okay, sister, keep working on it.

Open the door, will you, Simpson?

-It's Dave.

-Where did you find him?

-At the corner of Maple and Horton.

He never got to Springdale for help.

-That puts us right back where we started.

-And all we've got to do is sit right here

and wait for that thing to come back and finish us all off.

-I was all in favor of sealing off that cave

some time ago while the monster was still in it.

Wasn't I, Kingman?

-You can do it right now.

It went back to the cave.

Yes, sir, I seen it!

-The thing to do is to get lumber out there

and board that entrance up tight.

-Boards won't hold it. -Any better ideas?

-You're the road foreman, aren't you, Mr. Haskel?

-I am.

-Do you have enough dynamite to blow up the cave entrance?

-I can blow up half that hill, if you want me to.

-Okay, Sam, go ahead and get the stuff.

We'll meet you at your place. -Right.

-Simpson, you've been sworn in.

Take care of the office for me till I get back.

And call the coroner.

The rest of you boys, come with us.

-Sheriff's office, Simpson speaking.

-Oh, hello, Mr. Simpson.

This is Joe, Mike's friend.

Remember me?

-Oh, yes, Joe. What's the trouble?

-I better tell the sheriff.

-Well, he's not here now.

Maybe you'd better tell me.

What is it, Joe?

-Well, it's about my heap.

Somebody mooched it off of me today to go for a ride,

and it isn't back yet.

After what that spider did this afternoon,

well, I was just wondering if --

-Well, it's a good idea to check.

What's the boy's name?

Well, it was Mike and Carol Flynn.

- Did they get back yet? - No.

At least I haven't seen them.

Did they say where they might be heading?

-No, sir.

-Thank you, Joe, I'll look into it.

-Hello?

-Mrs. Flynn, this is Mike Simpson's father.

-Didn't take us this long to come in, did it?

-Sure it did, you just forget.

-What time is it?

-I don't know, I haven't got a watch.

-I got a feeling it's late.

-It's still light.

-Don't kid me, that's luminous algae.

It grows on cave walls, and it shines.

Don't you remember Mr. Kingman told our science class?

-Alright, but from the next cavern,

you'll see daylight outside, you wanna bet?

-I don't see any daylight.

-I goofed.

-Never been in this cave before, either.

We're lost.

-I know.

-Well, let's hurry up and find our way out.

-That's what I'm doing.

I figure if we just go straight ahead,

we'll come to the part we know.

Come on, let's go this way.

-Mike? Mike, we can't go any further!

It's a dead end.

-There's gotta be another way out.

All I'm trying to do is find it.

-Mike, look.

There's something written on the wall.

-What did I tell you?

There have been people through here before.

"George Weston.

Lost, April 9th, 1902."

-Mike!

He must have starved to death.

I'm getting awfully worried, Mike.

-Me, too, Carol.

-Why did I ever have to bring you down here?

It's all my fault.

-Forget it.

-What do you suppose your mother's thinking?

-Well, they wouldn't tell her.

She's in the hospital having a baby.

-Well, what about your dad?

-Ah, he's pretty good, I think he can take it.

-My mother can't.

Not after what happened to my father.

-Don't make yourself feel bad, Carol.

-Don't you either, then.

-You know, all of a sudden, I feel hungry.

-Me, too.

-I just remembered, I've got a candy bar with me.

-Alright, you men, make it snappy.

Let's get that gear off that truck.

-Carol always lets me know when she isn't coming home.

Always.

But today, I don't know, she just wasn't herself.

She attached too much importance to that bracelet.

Oh, I hope she and Mike haven't gone back to that cave.

-Carol, do you see, this is the place where we got lost!

Now I know the way, it's through there.

-But the spider, Mike.

-If we stay here, it'll find us, come on, let's run.

There's the hole we fell through.

We haven't got far to go now.

Come on, climb through the web.

Come on!

-I'm stuck! -Give me your hand.

Give me your hand.

Come on.

-It's coming!

-Phil, Pete, let's get that extra dynamite outta here.

-Well, that'll be the end

of our spider's nest, eh, Kingman?

-And the spider.

-That's what you said last time.

-Well, this time it's for sure.

It's gotta die, no living organism can survive for long

once its food supply is cut off.

-We'll be ready to blow her up in a couple seconds.

-Let her blow when you're ready!

Stand wide back, all you men!

I don't want anyone hurt!

-Isn't that Joe's car over there?

-Well, yes, it is.

-Massey's Pizza, home of the perfect pizza taste,

is also home of the original Super Saver Pizza.

Massey's uses only the best pure ingredients and toppings,

the oldest and finest pizza recipe in Columbus,

and then serves perfect pizza at super saver prices.

Pick up a money-saving Massey's coupon

at Super Saver Cinemas' eight ticket counters

and enjoy the perfect pizza taste for less.

Massey's Pizzas have four locations -- in Westerville,

Gahanna, Reynoldsburg and Whitehall.

The perfect pizza taste and super-saver prices.

-There was something in that burning house

when Fearless Fred arrived.

Without a moment's hesitation, into the flames he dived.

He reappeared. The crowd all cheered.

The object in his hands...

-"This is what I saved..." -He said.

-It's Toddy, the chocolate drink that's just grand.

-Yes, Toddy does taste grand.

Toddy -- the delicious chocolate drink in a can.

Ice cold or steaming hot,

delicious Toddy hits the spot with everybody.

During intermission, see how much better that popcorn

or those hot dogs taste with Toddy.

On sale at our snack bar.

-Mmm.

Delicious.

-Are Mike and Carol just total dimwits?

-Pretty much.

-I mean, you don't really feel sorry for them

that they're being attacked by the giant spider a second time.

And that cave entrance, by the way,

that's probably the most famous cave entrance in movies,

because it's the entrance to the Bronson Caves in Bronson Canyon,

not far from the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park,

10 minutes from downtown Hollywood.

And, um, can I just say the giant sticky spider web

that they keep falling into and climbing out of?

Doesn't that look like one of those rope-climber things

on a children's playground?

I mean, remember when the science teacher looks at

the single strand of spider web that wrecked Jack Flynn's car?

You know, "Pure silk," he said.

Really? This is a fat rope, right?

But I quibble.

It was movies like this

that kept the drive-ins humming through all those years

when the studios wouldn't give them A-list titles,

so they had to book through American International Pictures

and other low-budget companies.

And actually, it was some of those same pictures

that made a difference

when drive-ins started their comeback in the 2000s.

In many cases, drive-ins would go dark in the '70s or '80s.

They would be abandoned by the second-generation owners,

but then the third generation,

the grandchildren of the original operator,

would take them over and bring back the drive-in theater

that everybody in town remembered from the old days.

They brought back the playgrounds,

they brought back the miniature golf.

But probably the two biggest innovations were FM radio sound.

So you didn't need those polls anymore.

And multiple screens.

Um, there's still some one-screeners out there,

but the most successful drive-ins today

have anywhere from 2 to 14 screens.

14 -- That's the number at the Thunderbird

drive-in in Fort Lauderdale.

And that actually brings up another innovation of the 2000s,

namely the use of drive-ins

as swap shops and flea markets in the daytime

and then movie theaters at night.

And it creates multiple sources of income for the owners.

There was a week in the spring of 2020,

when 100% of the national first-run box office

was drive-ins.

-Wow.

-And that's because the only theaters open that week were

drive-ins due to COVID restrictions,

and the only drive-ins showing first-run movies

was one drive-in --

the Ocala drive-in in Ocala, Florida.

Um, actually showing IFC films, our sister company.

They were showing IFC first-run films.

And they should have been showing, uh,

"Revenge of the Nerds," because that was the week

when we discovered one more thing the drive-in

can do that indoor theaters cannot do.

Drive-ins can prevent disease.

-Okay. -And they did.

And now we return to the stunning conclusion

of "Earth Versus the Spider."

Roll it.

Remember the tagline on the poster

for "Earth Versus the Spider"?

It must eat you to live.

Genius. -Yeah, yeah.

-Bert I. Gordon. Bert I. Gordon didn't care

where the spider came from in the script.

He didn't care where it came from,

whether there might be more of them,

how it grows, why it's there.

It's just giant spider wants to eat people.

-What else do you need?

-Exactly.

-Exactly. -So let's go to the snack bar.

Darcy. -Why?

-Because it's dee-licous.

-Is it a tasty treat? -It is a tasty treat.

It's a taste treat, first of all.

But it's also a tasty treat. -I tried. Let's go.

-And after that, we'll go to the malt shop.

-Let's do it.

-Do they still have malt shops?

-I feel like they do, but not as...

-They have a few malt shops. That's a damn shame.

So some of these retro drive-ins

need to bring back the malt shop, too.

What is a malt, anyway? I don't even know what that is.

Is that the same thing as a milkshake?

-We were talking about that.

I think a malt is a little thicker.

-It's just thicker? That's the whole thing?

-That's what we've decided.

-You know what I like?

-Tell me.

-Single malts.

-Wah wah.

-♪ Baseball Joe was a slugger, you know ♪

♪ He made all the pitchers cry ♪

♪ He was frank to admit the reason he hit ♪

♪ Was t-o-d-d-y ♪

-♪ Toddy ♪

-Mm-hmm. -That's the drink for me.

-♪ Toddy -Mm-hmm.

-Try it, Pop, and see.

-♪ Toddy -Mm-hmm.

-Man, oh, man.

♪ That's the brand new, brand new ♪

♪ Chocolate malt in a can ♪

-Yessiree, try Toddy and you'll agree.

Toddy is as delicious as the finest-tasting

soda-fountain malted you ever had.

Ice cold or steaming hot, ask for Toddy.

-Mmm.

Delicious.

-Please do something. -You sealed them up.

You're gonna have to open that cave and get them out.

-Now, don't get excited.

We're gonna do everything for them we can.

How do we go about it, Haskel?

-Open up the cave again.

That's easy to say, Sheriff, but it's gonna take some doing.

Well, we blew up tons of earth and rock over that opening.

Brought half the hillside down.

-Well, we better start clearing it away.

-Take days, maybe a week even.

-There isn't that much time.

If the spider doesn't get them, the bad air will.

-Well, then we better get going, the sooner the better.

You've got a car.

Go into town and get them to send out a bulldozer.

-Wait, there may be a quicker way than that.

See that flat shelf a little higher up the mountain?

Suppose we dug straight down from there?

-How about it, Haskel?

-Looks good to me.

Let's get those ropes, picks and shovels out of that truck.

Here's where we go to work.

-You don't want to look at it like that, Mrs. Flynn.

You've got to remember that cave is a big place

and those kids have a lot of sense.

They'll find places where the spider can't get at them.

-If we do dig our way in,

what's to keep it from getting at us?

-I don't know.

What do you say, Kingman?

-We gotta have some kind of an effective weapon against it,

that's obvious.

That power line across the hills.

If we could bring a cable over from there...

-What for?

-Let's see if we can electrocute the beast.

-Know where we can find a quarter mile

of insulated copper cable this side of Springdale?

-You might try the express office.

Seems to me I saw a lot of that stuff in there.

-You wanna go for it in the truck, Simpson?

-Yeah.

-I'm sure you wouldn't waste any time getting it back.

-How's it coming?

-Not bad, but we have plenty to go.

-Carol?

Carol!

Carol!

-Where is it?

-Let's go. Can you make it?

-I'll be alright.

-We've struck granite!

-Come on up and let me get down there.

-Isn't this the place we came in?

-I'm sure it was!

-They've closed the opening! -What do we do?

What was that?

-Sounds like blasting. I bet they know we're in here.

I bet they're trying to get us out!

Help! Help! -Help! Help!

-Help! -Help!

-They can't hear us.

Maybe if we get closer to where they're working.

-Help! Help!

-Help, we're down here!

-Help!

Help! -Help!

-Help!

-Help, we're down here!

-Help! -We're down here!

-Mike, Carol, we hear you!

We're coming!

-It's Kingman, they've heard us!

-This is the power line foreman, Kingman.

He's going to help us when the cable gets here.

I thought you'd be the one to brief him on what we're doing.

-Well, my idea is to tie into that power line,

take a couple electrodes into the cave, get the spider

between them, and turn on the juice.

-We want to create an electric arc, you see,

so it jumps through its body like a bolt of lightning.

-You think it'll work? -It could.

How about electrodes? -Simpson's bringing them.

Have you got tools and rubber gloves?

-In my Jeep.

All we need is the cable and I'm ready to go.

-That could be Simpson now.

-Ledge. If we can get out far enough on it,

the spider can't follow us.

Don't be scared. Just hold on to me.

Mike?

-Yeah, what?

-There's nothing to walk on over here.

-Okay.

-We can't get back.

Give me that thing.

Does that sound hollow, or am I crazy?

We've broke through! Do you hear me?!

We've broke through!

-How are they doing down there? Is Carol alright?

-We're going down there for now, Mrs. Flynn.

It may take a little while before we find them,

but we'll send up news as fast as we can.

As soon as I get down there,

pass along the cable and electrodes.

Keep it coming, see that I have plenty of slack.

No telling how much I'll need once I'm below.

-Well, don't go down yet, wait for the equipment.

-You wait for the equipment. See you below.

-The rest of you men follow that equipment.

-Carol!

Mike!

Carol!

Mike!

Carol!

-Hey, Carol, it's them!

They're coming for us. What did I tell you?

Hey, we're in here!

Help! -Help!

-Help! -Help!

-Why don't we split up?

-Alright, you men stay here.

-Sheriff, better go armed.

-Yeah, let's have my rifle.

-Mike!

Mike!

-Carol, look!

-Sheriff, this way!

Throw this down.

-Catch, Mike!

-I got it, now what?

-There's a rubber glove, put it on.

Here we go. Tell him to hook us up.

-Okay!

-Okay!

-Okay!

-Higher, Kingman!

-Tell 'em to turn off the juice.

-Hold it! -Hold it!

-Hold it!

-Let's get the kids off the ledge.

-Oh, Sheriff, where's Carol, where is she?

-She's alright, Mrs. Flynn, we had a little trouble

getting the kids off a narrow ledge they were trapped on.

Excuse me.

- Oh, Carol. - Mom.

I'm awfully sorry, I didn't mean to scare you this way.

Honestly, I couldn't help it.

-Mike, you're alright?

-I'm okay.

Guess I was a lot of trouble to you, wasn't I, Dad?

-Come on, son.

-Go on up.

It's alright, everything's out of the cavern, I checked.

-Yeah, thanks, Jake.

-Good night, Sheriff. -Good night, Haskel.

Thanks for everything.

Sure took you long enough down there.

-I was checkin' up.

-Anything left behind? -Nothing but a dead spider.

-Well, this time he's going to stay dead.

Dead and buried.

-Let's say at least until some egghead comes along

and digs it up again.

-Correct me if I'm wrong, Darcy,

but I think the first thing Janet and Mike

do after their terrifying experience with the giant spider

and the spooky cavern

is apologize to their parents for worrying them.

-You are absolutely right.

And it's a super cute movie.

-And you just told me we got a bunch of social media

about what a malt is. -Oh, yes.

-And now we know that a malt is a milkshake

with malt powder put in it.

That's the same kind of powder you put in Whoppers.

-Yes. Whopper.

Whopper milkshakes. Sounds amazing.

-Yeah.

-And now we know. So thank you guys.

-Thanks for all the -- Thanks for all the --

-The correction. -Malt information.

Um, this was Bert Gordon's seventh

and last sci-fi movie of the '50s.

It went out on a twin bill with "The Brain Eaters,"

and it did pretty well, but not as well as AIP expected.

And so bug movies were kind of over.

Um, after this,

Bert branched out into teen fantasy pictures like

"The Boy and the Pirates," "The Magic Sword,"

"Village of the Giants."

Supernatural-horror pictures like "Necromancy,"

"Burned at the Stake," "Satan's Princess,"

and psychological dramas like "Tormented"

and "Picture Mommy Dead," and Ed Kemmer,

who played the science teacher and really carried the movie --

He had all the exposition -- was a World War II veteran,

and he had learned to act in a German POW camp.

His P-51 fighter plane was shot down over France in 1944,

and his first performances were on the prison-camp stage,

but he never was able to beat that "Space Patrol" typecasting,

and so in 1964, he moved to New York

and he became king of the soap operas.

He was on all of the soap operas

over the next two decades -- "Edge of Night,"

"As the World Turns," "All My Children,"

"Guiding Light,"

and he died in 2004 at the age of 84.

Gene Roth, who played Sheriff Cagle,

continued to make dozens of movies

every year, doing character parts.

And then he retired from acting in the early '70s

to go to work at a liquor store.

And sadly, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1976.

George Worthing Yates,

who was Mr. Bug Movie when it came to screenwriters,

had written the best of them all -- "Them!" -- in 1954,

the one about atomic tests that mutate the ants.

And he had a long partnership with Bert I. Gordon

that continued into the '60s.

Passed away in 1975 at the age of 74.

Not that well remembered,

despite his pretty amazing output

of screen work and novels.

He wrote the original "King Kong Versus Godzilla" in 1962,

for example, no credit for that one.

June Kenney,

who yells "Dad" so many times that she dislodges a stalactite,

her final movie was "Bloodlust!"

In 1961, she abandoned acting.

She got married and moved to a horse ranch in Pahrump, Nevada,

and lived until 2021.

Gene Persson -- I didn't talk about Gene Persson.

Maybe because the character of Mike is so lame,

but he also quit acting after "Bloodlust!"

He had been placed in an orphanage at age 12,

but he became one of the children

in the Ma and Pa Kettle films,

and that's what got him into the business.

But he was never that comfortable as a thespian,

so he moved to New York in the '60s

and became a hot Broadway producer.

He produced one of the longest running Off-Broadway hits ever,

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

And then he did the first plays of LeRoi Jones,

better known today as Amiri Baraka,

including Baraka's most famous work, "Dutchman."

He produced three Tennessee Williams plays.

He produced the first five plays of Peter Barnes,

the Brit who wrote "The Ruling Class."

Anyway, he became a heavy hitter, just not as an actor.

Hank Patterson continued to be the old coot

in all the television Western series of the '60s.

He was so popular on "Gunsmoke,"

they continued to use him even after he went deaf.

The dialogue coach would lie on the floor of the set

and tap his leg whenever he had a line.

But Hank died in 1975

in the Motion Picture Actors Home in Woodland Hills.

And Bert I. Gordon, the man they used to call Mr. B-I-G

in "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine,

Bert would still be producing

and directing films as late as 2015 at age 93,

and I guess if you looked at his overall career,

his most acclaimed work was "The Food of the Gods,"

based very loosely on the H.G. Wells' novel.

Definitely king of the giant monsters, though.

He did 12 of those,

starting with "King Dinosaur" in 1955.

And I feel bad about this,

but I was always trying to get Bert Gordon

on "The Last Drive-In,"

but we never had a movie to match him to,

and then he died in 2023 at the age of 100.

And, um, I was amazed when he died,

how little was written about him.

He was one of those prolific exploitation directors

whose death did not result in retrospectives

and repertory screenings.

I wish we could have honored him on the show.

-Well, we are. -We are?

-Yes. -Okay, I guess we are.

-And speaking of honoring people,

I think we should honor all the people

who watched your "One Cut of the Dead" speech

and followed their dreams.

-People are not gonna know what

you're talking about, Darcy.

-I feel like they will. Hold on.

Here's our mail.

-This is about "One Cut of the Dead"?

-Yes.

It's from Anthony Cleveland of Indiana.

-Okay. "Hi, Joe Bob.

My name is Anthony Cleveland, and I'm a comic book writer.

I'm gonna try to not make this one too long

because I know the letters never stop coming for you.

I did catch the Keep Rolling segment

when it first aired for 'One Cut of the Dead.'"

Should I explain that?

-Uh, you gave an inspirational speech about being an artist.

-Well... -We don't have time.

-It was more specific than that.

-Just read it. We get it.

-Alright. "I spent my life studying filmmaking,

and I put everything I had

into a documentary about a local true crime

that I had wanted to tell since middle school.

Life caught up to me,

and I, unfortunately had to abandon that project.

Despite this, I never lost my passion for storytelling,

and I pivoted to a different medium.

When your 'One Cut' episode aired,

I was just starting out as a comic book writer

with a surprisingly good amount of success.

Yet the failure of coming short on the documentary

still gnawed at me.

And honestly, the Keep Rolling segments

you did hurt hearing it.

It was more of a reminder of how hard

that failure hit me after continually trying to move on.

But the segment stuck in the back of my head."

And then he talks about this Jodorowsky --

Jodorowsky scene that also stuck in his head.

"I dug back into the project

and I gave it a different life as a comic book.

It took years and lots and lots of failures

to finally get a publisher to greenlight it, but we made it.

There were a lot of little motivations and affirmations

to get me here,

but I think the idea of passing you this e-mail

and finally sharing a completed project was a big motivator.

I only have a digital copy available,

but I will get the whole collection to you

later in the year.

November most likely.

The series title is 'Buried Long, Long Ago'

and is a mix of true crime and fairy tales.

I could rant for a long while about growing up

with Monstervision

and rediscovering Joe Bob in college

from 'Something Weird' VHS tapes,

but I'm gonna cut it short. From my heart,

I appreciate everything you've done.

Thank you for being the nudge I needed to hear.

I hope you like the comic, Anthony Cleveland."

Yeah, when I did that show, I was talking about filmmakers,

especially the indie filmmakers that I meet

who apologized for their work, which I hate.

I hate people apologizing.

Never apologize for your work.

But the mail that's come in since then

hasn't just been filmmakers.

It's been novelists and dancers and musicians,

and we've had some amazing stories,

and I'm happy that we pushed a few people over the edge

to realize their potential.

I've never been an inspirational speaker.

I actually mistrust inspirational speakers,

so it was all a little bit shocking.

-People just really took it to heart.

-Alright, so Anthony, do send me the comic.

I will read it. Fairy tales and true crimes.

I'm there. Fairy tales are full of crimes.

So, yeah, I get that. And, um,

Darcy, you know what time it is?

-What?

-As soon as this intermission is over,

it's time to celebrate your birthday.

-Woo! -Yeah! Yeah!

-But first, on this birthday of the drive-in,

I want us to honor Ed Roberts.

Uh, there's a clip that they used to play

whenever you would leave the drive-in,

and it was Ed Roberts thanking you for being at the drive-in.

Ed was the voice of the drive-in,

and therefore, he was the heart and soul of the drive-in.

And we should honor him tonight as well.

I'm Joe Bob Briggs, speaking for myself and Darcy,

the Mail Girl, when I say on this night is every night and

as history has proven, the drive-in will never die.

-And now, folks, it's time to say good night.

We sincerely appreciate your patronage and hope

we've succeeded in bringing you an enjoyable evening

of entertainment.

Please drive home carefully and come back again soon.

Good night.