Retro Christmas present: The Remco Drive-In


Here’s what to get your young, unsophisticated drive-in enthusiast, especially if you have access to a time machine or a ton of cash to throw at some eBay seller. (If you can find the thing at all.)

Check out this commercial of two kids getting way too excited about the Remco “Movieland” drive-in toy. Marvel at the glorious scale-model drive-in set, which we see for only a second or two at the beginning. Get jolted back to reality at the sight of the real toy, which looks much smaller. Watch the young Patty Duke as Betty the Ticket Taker. See Jimmy underemphasize the fact that all they get to watch are just “six exciting still features”. By “still features,” Jimmy means a film strip, projected by a battery-operated light bulb onto a 4×6-inch screen.

The opening set, with the self-moving cars, I’ll bet that imaginary world had real films showing. But this thing? I expect that any real kid who got a Movieland Drive-In for Christmas in 1959 got tired of it in a half hour, don’t you?