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by ButlerianJihad 18 days ago
Remember MovieFone? That guy with the Mr. Moviefone voice?! Oh, man!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviefone

1 comments

We used to record the showings listings manually at the cinemas and it was incredibly hard to do while zooted on weed

Theater usher was quite possibly the best job I’ve ever had

I can relate. For a brief, shining month, I worked at Tower Records, and one of the duties when we closed was to get on the PA (through the phone system) and make the announcements about the store closing.

Now these announcements were supposed to be brief and structured, but when they permitted me to make them, I couldn't resist cracking up and laughing for some reason, in the middle of recitation, and so never mastered the art of making the announcements for the store. Pretty sad.

But I do recall those days, when movie theaters had all their showtimes on tape. I know that the movie theater is a place that we would never expect to reach a human on the phone. Because that announcement would play, for as long as it needed at a multiplex, and then repeat or cut off. And you were supposed to figure out the showtimes by picking through the linear verbal announcement and choosing your favorite film. I can only imagine the teenage staff who are mostly paid in concessions, how they would get to recording that stuff!