Category Archives: Washington

Video: Blue Fox bumps up Christmas Village experience

Posted on by
Reply

The Blue Fox Drive-In Theater in Oak Harbor WA reopened its Christmas Village with 100,000 more lights and lots of other stuff. At least that’s what was reported in the South Whidbey Record.

What’s even better for us is that the Blue Fox folks posted a YouTube video short, embedded above. That’s where I saw a cool feature of the village, not mentioned in the article, that you can only get at a drive-in — a Yule log video playing on the huge screen in the background. I hope that more drive-ins get the message that this is a fine way to give back to the community and earn a few December bucks at the snack bar.

Video: Rodeo Celebrates 70 Years

Posted on by

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of local TV news segments about nearby drive-in theaters. This week, KING-TV, Seattle’s News Leader, posted an affectionate look at Bremerton WA’s Rodeo Drive-In Theatre that has to be in my Top Ten.

As I wrote two years ago during my Drive-In-A-Day Odyssey, “Rodeo Motor Movies” opened in 1949 as a single-screen drive-in for about 600 cars. The Seattle-based Cascade/Seven Gables Cinemas bought the Rodeo in 1977 and added two more screens the following year, expanding the capacity total to about 1000 cars.

Jack and Cindy Ondracek bought the rundown Rodeo in 1986 after it had been for sale for several years, and they still own it today. “It was a big leap of faith at the time but it worked out real well,” said Jack, who is now the projectionist. Cindy runs the box office, and oldest daughter Cheryl manages the snack bar.

KING’s video, which I can’t recommend highly enough, shows plenty of patrons relaxing and getting happy waiting for the movie to start. Its story ends with a perfect quote from Cindy: “People up here value the fact that the evening is sometimes the most amazing part of the entire day. Out here we kind of embrace that, and we give you a great way to finish the day off.”

There are photos and more details in KING’s post online. For a good time, you really should go read it!

Blue Fox Celebrates 60th Anniversary

Posted on by

The Blue Fox Drive-In Theater in Oak Harbor WA turned 60 years old this year, and KIRO radio’s MyNorthwest ran a nice story this week about the achievement.

Blue Fox Drive-In box office, sign and screen
Photo by atucker294 via CinemaTreasures

As I wrote in my Drive-In-A-Day Odyssey in 2017, Woodrow “Woody” Cecil and his wife Charlotte built the Blue Fox in 1959. What I didn’t know then was the great naming story offered by current co-owner Darrell Bratt.

“The reason it’s called the Blue Fox, from what I understand from the original owner, was when he built the place in ’59 he didn’t have a name for it,” Bratt told MyNorthwest. “He contacted a sign company to build a sign for him. The maker of the sign says, ‘I’ve got a deal for you if you’re not picky on your name.’ He had a sign that was the Blue Fox Drive-In, you know the old drive-in restaurants. He goes, ‘It’s a repossessed sign, so if you call it that I can make you a heck of a deal on a sign!’ That’s how it got the name of the Blue Fox drive-in.”

Bratt and his wife bought the Blue Fox in 1988 and have run it ever since. They added a go-cart track. A few years ago, they raised the money for a digital projector by selling t-shirts and sweatshirts from its screen printing shop.

There’s so much more to see in the MyNorthwest article, including a fine photo of a woman holding a popcorn bucket, so you just know you need to go read it!