In 1959, the Ohio State Highway Patrol produced a 27-minute film showing graphic scenes of fatal traffic accidents. The footage was accompanied by a soundtrack of the cries and moans of the victims. They called the film "Signal 30" — referring to the patrol's radio code for fatal accidents.
The film was shown at many high schools, in an attempt to scare kids into being good drivers. Some judges also made people with traffic violations watch it "to atone for their violations." It got some dramatic reactions from viewers. For instance:
One woman rushed from the room, nauseated. Firemen gave her a whiff of ammonia to prevent fainting and she said: "I don't think I'll ever drive again."
Another woman had to be carried from the courtroom and given oxygen after she watched a truck driver burning to death in the color-and-sound film.
The film is now on YouTube, so you can find out how you would react to it. (I actually haven't had the courage to watch it yet.)
This seems to me a vivid example of a massively clever technology that totally missed out on the future train. Adding sound capture to film stock itself made this huge device totally obsolescent overnight.
Like Shatner, Nimoy and other actors, well-known Disney star Dean Jones fancied himself a singer as well. The opening bellow of this first track reminds me faintly of Jim Morrison.
What do you all think of his talents in this arena?
The Moonbump company claims to be suppliers of props to the film and TV industry. I suspect sexual fetishes are really involved, but I hesitate to inquire more deeply.
In 1973, Lloyd Honey opened the Tricircle drive-in movie theater. It was the first-ever circular drive-in. The advantage of this was that it allowed x-rated movies to be shown, because the picture couldn't be seen from surrounding areas. This circular design was marketed as "Visible X" technology, but it doesn't seem to have caught on.
Lloyd Honey of [Richland, Washington] already owned a couple of standard-size drive-ins in the area when he opened a miniature one on May 30, 1973. It was circular in shape, with 120 individiual screens each of which was 3 by 4 feet, a sixty-inch diagonal. The projection booth was located in the center of the circle, 165 feet from the viewing area. Using 120 lenses and reflecting mirrors, the image was back-projected to all the screens. Sound was picked up on the car radios. Honey said that this theater — built at a cost of $70,000 — needed just two people to operate it. While not designed specificially for X-rated films, this new theater "could very well show them," Honey conceded. He claimed that it was the "first of its kind on the West Coast." It was also the last.
According to drive-ins.com, the Tricircle was torn down at some point, and there's now a Wal-Mart on the site.
Hi there!
Very recently I traveled to London for the first time and stumbled upon this man named Stephen Wright who’s systematically turning his home into a giant piece of artwork he calls “The House Of Dreams”.
I made a super short film about him and his home, and thought it may be of interest to you and/or your readers 😊 Would love to hear your thoughts.
Definitely WU-worthy. In fact, Wright's House of Dreams is a bit like WU itself — a collection of oddities gathered in one place over many years.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.