Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 July 02 • Friday

Evidence for the powerful impact of television on film attendance, at least in 1963, came from Pacific's Bart Pirosh, who said the biggest box office weekend he ever had in his three decades in the business was the weekend after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. "The people came just in droves," he recalled, "because they couldn't see regular television programs." Similarly, a Georgia owner said that the week after the assassination was the biggest he ever had. "They lined up out here for two and three hours. Face it, they were cut off from their crap on the tube. The next big surge was during the moonshots. The moonshots were the best thing that's happened to drive-ins since Elvis."

Kerry Segrave, Drive-In Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933, 1992