Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Strangest Thing You've Seen In Your Theatre

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Posted by Heyward Garner (Member # 722) on 03-05-2001, 11:21 PM:

Among many of the nappy and disgusting things I am sure we have all found in our theatre (Used Condoms and dirty diapers to name a few) what are some of the WEIRDEST things you've seen in or around your theatre?

There is a man who frequents our theatre about once a month. Every single time he pulls up and parks, he gets out and buffs his ENTIRE car with a rag. Ooooooooook...

I once saw a younger kid laying on the ground with his head underneath the front of the curtain. I was trying to figure out what in the hell he was doing. It was during the credits of "The Matrix". He had stuck his head next to the woofers to feel the air they were pushing. =)

I've seen some other pretty weird things, but I don't feel I should mention them at this time. Curious to see what else happens out there...?

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-05-2001, 11:55 PM:

I ran (as a union relief operator) at a sleeze theater in Oakland, California. I would like to think "I have seen it all", but I probably have not. However, I certainly will not go into details...

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 03-05-2001, 11:56 PM:

Two of our employees screwing in the back of the balcony, a man who curled up on the floor between the rows and went to sleep and wasn't discovered till the next day around 10am by the cleaning people, he said the movie was boring and he need some sleep, back in the
30s a man died sometime between his arrival during the last matinee and closing , he was discovered when he didn't wake up. A group of
about 10 people came in one night about 12 years ago and asked if they could sit in the balcony even though it was closed, they were allowed up. About an hour later the projectionist started to the lobby to get a Coke and discovered that they were nudists, they were allowed to stay as they were but were asked that if they wanted to do it again to please tell us so we would allow nobody else in the balcony.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-05-2001, 11:59 PM:

How about these two guys come walking into the lobby carrying this ratty, old sofa. They give their tickets to the usher at the podium. (AND he lets them go through, sofa and all!)

Problem was that they couldn't get the thing through the door of the auditorium. The manager on duty stops them and asks them what the F*** they are doing. They said they wanted to go in and watch a movie "just like home". He sent them away but they dumped the ratty, old thing in the back parking lot. So... a couple hours later the thing found its way up to the booth. (I WONDER how that happened? )

A couple days later the boss came in and said the sofa had to go. To my knowledge the thing is still lying in the weeds at the bottom of the ravine out back of the theatre.

Posted by Brian Potts (Member # 429) on 03-06-2001, 12:08 AM:

Oh let's see. There could be lots of things I can put in the category as strange. I've had a homeless guy take a bath in the sink. Or, I had someone drop a lit cigarette in the trash can and set it on fire. Caught plenty of people screwing in the theatres. Had surround speakers stolen off the walls. And my city manager told me I didn't work in a bad part of town.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-06-2001, 01:11 AM:

Working in a movie theater you really do "see it all". For instance waaaaay back when I was working in concession a couple came up and started ordering from the other concessionist on duty. The other concessionists' name was Adam. Anyway as Adam was ringing up their order the guy pulls his girlfriends' boob out of her blouse and shows it to him, asking Adam if he thought she had nice boobs. She didn't seem to mind. Adam just smiled and said "Yeah that's a nice one!" and continued with his duty.

I've had customers have heart attacks when I was managing. I really didn't think my management style was THAT bad. There's probably other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

As for employees having sex in the theater... been there done that

Posted by Betsie Beadling (Member # 591) on 03-06-2001, 02:45 AM:

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-06-2001, 08:04 AM:

I remember reading in the papers that someone was found dead in their seat in a London muliplex a couple of years ago. He'd had a massive heart attack sometime during the matinee of 'Plunkett and Macleane'. I know this film is S**t but that was surely an over-reaction!

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 03-06-2001, 02:00 PM:

Strangest thing? The most puzzling was a set of dripping wet underpants. Everyone came in dry, and no one left without their pants on...?

The Rocky Horror crews have to be in a category by themselves.

Sleep-over, check.
Dead man, check.
Dead employee, not me but a friend found one, check.
Assorted form fitting rubber products, check.
A fish, check. (small sunfish some kid musta caught)
Wallet with over $1,000 in it, check.

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 03-06-2001, 03:10 PM:

Back in 97, i was changing trailers on some movies. This particular theatre had 6 small booths for 10 theatres. We were never in the habit of sending back old trailers, so I usually threw the trailer away in a lobby trash can just outside the booth door.

A couple minutes later, I was in the lobby talking to my manager when we looked over and saw this man going through the garbage runnung the film through his hands. I found this a little odd, but it didn't bother me, nor did it bother my manager. He just wanted me to go over and make sure he was going to leave it in the trash can whenever he was done doing whatever it was he was doing and not make a mess with it.

So I go over and ask this man what he was doing.

"Do you know who Lucas is?" he asked.

"Yes." I responded.

"Do you know who Speilberg is?" he asked.

"Yes." I responded once again.

He then proceded to tell me that he had seen them both in separate interviews say that they liked the feel of film in their hands and he was trying to figure out "just what the fuck they get out of this."

He then asked me if I'd like to touch it, and I told him not really because I touch it all the time. Then he asked me if I'd like to touch anything else, to which I responded with "No, that's ok."

He asked me if either my manager or I had a problem with him messing with the film, and I said that there was no problem, but we just wanted to make sure he wasnt going to make a mess out of it. He jokingly said that he had planned on stringing it all over the theatre and asked if we would have a problem with that, and I told him that yes, we would. He said "Then I guess I'll leave it right here>" He threw the film back into the trash and went to his movie.
=============================================
There were other things that I didn't see,but was told about at another theatre I worked at.

The air conditioning in one of the theatres that was playing THE MUMMY was out and this employee went in and told the people that since the movie was shot in the desert, we wanted them to have the full effect of the film.

Near the end of the first run of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, some employees went in during the opening battle scene with brooms and water balloons and acted out in front of the audience what was happening on screen.

During the summer of 1999, some of these same employees were fired fo participating in "theatre beatings."
What they would do, is have an employee (sometimes male, sometimes female) go in out of uniform and sit down in the movie. Then another employee (usually out of uniform) would go in and and sit down next to this person and start sexually harrassing them. Ushers in uniform would go in a few seconds later as if to do a presentation check, see this happening and act as if they were beating this person senseless right in front of the audience. They were finally caught when a customer went out to complain and saw the guilty party coming out of the break room and pointed them out to the management.
=============================================
The theatre I left in October has had a few problems the last couple of months. One friday night after closing, mall security found a hatchback with a body in it that had been shot in the head. I haven't heard the whole story, but from what I've heard, this was an "accidental suicide."
You may be asking how you accidentally shoot youself in the head in the back of your car in the parking lot of a movie theatre.
Well, as it turns out, these guys were playing a little game called "Russian Roullette" and this lucky bastard won (or lost) the game. His friends panicked and drove off.
The very next day, they got to deal with two fights in the lobby and three more that almost happened.
A couple weeks ago, the concession stand was shut down for seven hours because of mice.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 03-06-2001, 03:36 PM:

Other than the standard unusual things...

I heard of an employee acutally living behind on of the screens. This employee was AWOL from the Navy, had roomied with one of the other employees there, and got kicked out, and had been living behind the screen for about a month, unknown by the managers. This screen is also in the haunted auditorium. Funny thing is, is that once the managers went home for the night. The alarm was set, couldn't open any doors, or leave the auditorium because of motion sensors.

Same theatre, before I got there. A woman was DWI, drove THROUGH the box office, lobby, conession stand and into an auditorium. Fortunatly this was after hours and only person in the building was the janitor, and she was in annother part of the building. I saw the pictures and it was trashed. On the plus side of it. The chain was forced to remodel the box office and lobby.

Annother instance at the same theatre... Someone broke into the theatre at night, used a tensabarrier pole to smash the glass on the candy display. while they were reaching in to get the goods, a piece of the plate glass fell down cutting thier hand. No missing candy, but a trail of blood leaving the theatre.

Once had a child get stuck UNDER a seat. Had to unbolt the seat from the floor to get him out.

Posted by George Roher (Member # 91) on 03-06-2001, 04:00 PM:

Once a handicapped customer arrived in one of those motorized wheelchair/scooter contraptions. He asked the usher to look after his scooter while he watched the movie. The usher was more than pleased to do this and began joyriding the thing all over the lobby and down the sidewalk. At one point, he was in the back of the lobby when a customer walked in. He pushed the joystick and zoomed right up to the stanchion with a giant grin on his face.

On a real slow night, a different usher was standing at the door extremely still and quiet, lost is his thoughts. This old guy came in and thought he was a mannequin.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-06-2001, 09:20 PM:

Hey Paul, Was that Bob Dominicks sleeze theater you worked at?
Mark @ GTS

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-06-2001, 11:20 PM:

Mark, I don't know who owned it, but it was the Pussy Cat Theater. The other was the Esquire.

Posted by Heyward Garner (Member # 722) on 03-06-2001, 11:56 PM:

When Episode 1 was released, we had a few super-extra-excited employees. Opening night they began to take the aluminium handles off of the floor hokeys, and coreographed an entire duel. Three employees in all. It took them several days to get it down pat, but once they did, they had been through seven hokey handles, and one of them had bruises because they went all out. They were actually trying to beat the hell out of each other! Their hands were all messed up and three of the handles snapped entirely... Whoooooooooooooooooooooo!

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-07-2001, 12:13 AM:

This incident happened back in 1987 at the northpark cinema 10. YOU MAY HAVE SEEN THE STORY ON THE NEWS. I was working there the day this happened. A customer had been skipping movies all day and was caught doing so and was asked to leave. He kept demanding his money back but he could not produce a ticket stub to get a refund. So he threatend to drive his truck into the lobby. Well nobody believed him and the way the theater was sitting it was not possable to get to the lobby from the street with a truck. At least we thought you couldn't but he found a way by smashing his semi truck through the corador that led to the theater between some stores damaging the overhead roof of the walkway and plowed right thru the front of the theater and into the lobby. Luckly no body was killed or injured. The truck was sandwiched in between the ticket box and the concession stand. Diesel fuel was all over the place. We had to evacuate about 500 people. Amazingly the theater was back open in a week.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 03-07-2001, 06:41 PM:

This isn't THAT weird, but I think it's pretty out of place.

I was relief managing one of our theatres when Walt Disney's Flubber came out. This theatre is in a town full of "free-thinking-herbalists". I mean, I would often get puffs of pot smoke through the box office window from people walkin down the street takin a quick puff. What I didn't expect was some woman taking hits in the MIDDLE of a SOLD OUT auditorium (295 people!!) I shoulda called the cops, but I was just SO shocked that she'd have the nerve to do it, I just walked in and pointed at her. I was like "WHAT?! What ARE you DOING? Are you NUTS?!"

My reaction was quite similar when some guy just popped open the four corners to a snap-lock poster frame and proceeded to steal the Crow: City of Angels poster out of it. Whean I heard the poster frame snapped shut (what a nice theif) it registered to me that the guy (1 of 10 in the theatre that day) just took down that poster. I rounded the corner just DUMBFOUNDED and again... "What?!?! You didn't think? Did you? Did you THINK you'd just take that off the wall?" Again -- I was just too damn amazed to kick his butt out.

I'll post more as I think of them. This is a fun topic.

------------------
Scott D. Neff
"Biding My Time"

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 03-11-2001, 10:51 AM:

Back in 1960, I was the assistant manager in a Newsreel Theatre in Times Square. The show consisted of three newsreels, a travelogue, a short subject and a cartoon. The shows were every hour on the hour, One night the screen went white, I ran to the booth and found my projectionist on the floor dead between the two projector's. He was 87 years old.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 03-11-2001, 12:42 PM:

This did not happen to me, but to my boss after he went to the UA Town East 6 in Mesquite, Tx. Had a man come into one of his first shows of the day after he had been sitting there for a while someone came out to inform him that he had a patron coughing up blood in the middle of his theatre. By the time he got to the guy to acess the problem, the guy had died from literally coughing his Lungs up.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 03-11-2001, 12:59 PM:

Something that did happen to me when I was Asst Manager at UA the Movies @ Padre Staples Mall was I had left a garbage can in the hall way after the last shows had let out. I walked into the inset for Auditorium 5, when I came back around the corner, My can had moved down to the next set of doors.

I told the Janitor about it when he showed up, much to my surprise he had this happen to him as well on several occassions. The next time I closed I took a 4 ft level and placed it accross the floor and found the floor to be level so it was not caused by sloping in the hallway. Wonder if the place really was Haunted.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-11-2001, 02:46 PM:

A friend of mine was a manager at a three screen theater here. It has since closed. He told me about a couple of instances that happened to him in the booth. One evening he was walking thru the booth and a rolling chair back up under the projection desk. The thing about this chair was you had to use a lot of force to move it. When he got to the booths exit door he heard a strange noise. When he turned to look, the chair had moved back to the center of the booth. SPOOKY!

Another incident occured one night when he was down stairs checking the auditoriums. The theater was empty at the time. Suddenly he heard this loud bang from upstairs. He ran up to see what the noise was but could not find anything turned over. When he was about to exit out of the booth he turned and looked and noticed an old wooden handled ice pick in the center of the booth floor. REAL SPOOKY!

This got his curiosity up so he did some investigation and found that before the area the mall was built on was a heavily wooded area. A body was found in this area that had apparently been stabed with an ice pick.
THAT IS DAMN SPOOKY!

Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 03-11-2001, 09:50 PM:

While screening "Triumph of the Wills" (nazi propaganda film) in a public theatre as part of a lecture series, a group of Neo-nazis showed up and marched right down to the front row.

Some patrons saw a real strange sight one night when I came running in from the parking lot carrying my car's battery and jumper cables to substitute for a blown exciter power supply (and its backup!).

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-12-2001, 09:30 AM:

At the single-screen Cinema 2 in Davis (may it rest in peace) the soda boxes were right outside the booth door. They would always leak onto the floor. One night after shutting the booth down and walking out, I saw a live mouse stuck in the Coke syrup, wiggling around! Call me a wimp, but that freaked me out- I just left a note for whoever was opening the next day to take care of it

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-12-2001, 09:49 AM:

At the Grandview drive-in, we frequently got critters in the booth. Once during the 1968 Cliff Robertson movie "Charly", we caught a field mouse that was finding a warm place to nest. We named it "Algernon", after the mouse in the movie, and kept it as a pet.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0062794

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 03-12-2001, 09:57 AM:

In 1962 I was managing the Town Theatre in Baltimore and we were getting ready for the Premiere of "The Birds" with Tippy Hedren. Well the Manager of the Hippodrome a sister theatre around the corner let 5 live birds loose in the auditorium. When the film was on the screen the birds would fly in the projection beam and smack into the screen. We got great publicity but it took about a week to get rid of the birds.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-12-2001, 10:53 AM:

Tom Sauter:

"Triumph of the Will" is one SCARY movie! You watch it, repulsed at the efficiency of Hitler's propaganda machine in 1934 and what it would lead to, but admiring the virtuoso filmmaking of Leni Riefenstahl:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0025913

Images from this film have influenced many films, including "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (the book burning rally), and the "Lion King" (the Hyena troops marching before Scar).

Ms. Riefenstahl was a complex character. She never wavered in her blind support of Hitler, but you sense her admiration for Jesse Owens and other non-arian athletes in her filmmaking of "Olympiad".

Posted by Michael Pace (Member # 553) on 03-14-2001, 06:18 AM:

Not a situation that happened to me but was told to me from a reliable source.

The projectionist at the Roma Drive-in Theatre, Roma which was situated in the south west of Queensland in Australia missed a change over completely one night. A snake had decided to slither into the projection room and was happily coiled up inbetween the projectors.

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 03-15-2001, 06:50 AM:

In the late 70's the company that I was with sent me to inspect a theatre for possible purchase. The theatre was an old vaudeville house which had been converted into a motion picture theatre. This theatre had three balconies and a hugh chandelier in a domed ceiling. Above the ceilings was a series of catwalks which the stagehands would use to change the lights. There were pulley controls for the chandeliers.

While walking on these catwalks, I spotted a dirty old envelope up in the bar joist beneath the roof. I climbed up and grabed the envelope and put it in my pocket. After the inspection I looked in the envelope and found eight mint condition "Joe Paloka" ink blotters which were distributed with WWII War bonds. There were also several unsold war bonds.

I had these put into a display, and hung them on the wall, in my den.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-24-2002, 11:19 AM:

[bumping up an old thread]

At a sold-out evening show of "ET" in a large 70mm auditorium, right before showtime, a pretty good-sized crab (like a tidepool crab) was spotted climbing up the curtains on a side wall, down front. People sitting near it freaked out. The theater staff had to delay the show while they tried to get the crab down by shaking the curtains. People sitting directly under the crab vacated their seats while this was going on, but the crab wasn't going to give in easily, so they started shaking the curtain very hard. When the crab finally came loose, it flew out into the middle of the auditorium where people were still seated. People were screaming and climbing over each other to get away from it. When the show finally started, there were some empty seats, so I guess they were so flustered they just left (probably with rainchecks).

Posted by Rory Burke (Member # 512) on 01-24-2002, 04:21 PM:

This should top alot of the post off!!!

This occurence happened about four years back whilst I was working for an all THX theater complex. As a matter of quality assurance coporate staff were encouraged to purchase movie tickets if we wanted to see a particular movie with in our theater chain. (odd no? we were reimbursed later as a normal procedure) The reasoning was that we were the eyes and ears amongst to ensure that service/customer client relation were adequate and thus purchasing the tickets were part of the client experience we were to be mimicking. I received a blank ticket that had the theater # and show time "hand written" I thought it was odd because I was not aware that there was a problem printing tickets although not part of my maintenace tasks however all maintenace personell seemed to know about the details with in everyones elses jobs. As I continued on I bought popcorn and soda at the concession stand and made my way to the ticket taker and noticed he held onto my "handwritten" ticket and never placced in in the ticket basket. <This was very odd to me>

The next day I went back to the same location and bought another movie ticket for the same showing and the same time as the previoous day. It happened again with the "handwritten" ticket and I noted the people involved and made a mental note as to their identities. Something smelled funny to me!

The following day I brought it to the attention of the operations manager as I thought higher management should know right away. The operations manager hesitantly told me that the printer had malfunctioned but that it was working well. With in a few days I returned to the theater on a sound service call and soon after I finished I made my way downstairs and observed the same thing happening again. I said "hmmmmmmm something stinks around here!"

Turns out there was a corruption ring that involved several candy girls/boys.........management <including floor supervisors> I thought there were still more people involved. It was peculiar that the operations manager of the chain and that the general manager of the theater were aware of the printers' "malfuntion" but somehow were innocent of any wrong doing!

Well two days ago I went to the movies....this time at a competitors complex and to my dismay I received another "handwritten" ticket! Wow!!! Turns out after conversing with floor staff and inquiring whom the management was; it is now the old general manager of the theater and his boss happens to be the old operations manager as well! What do you guys think? Jesus H Ch$*^!!!!!! what is going on in this world? Corruption seems to be more prevalent that I ever have thought it to be. I am just trully disgusted about the whole thing and will resort to watching movies at home on my LaserDisc and DVD players from now on! This is just absurd! ODD NO?

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 01-24-2002, 06:26 PM:

Rory, Your course of action is clear. These people are thieves and should be in jail. They are stealing money from the exhibitor and the film distributor, the production company,the actors and I could go on and on....you must do the right thing and report what you know. You may have to confront them but do it with pride. We need to rid this industry of this type of vermin. Feel free to call me, If you want to talk. Just ask I will e-mail you all my phone numbers.

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 01-25-2002, 12:36 AM:

Here's some of mine, prolly most of you have read some of these:

-Walked in one morning to find my booth trashed from a wild "goodbye" party the night before. Food everywhere and the burnt remains of a trampoline lying on the street below the rear outside balcony.
-During Episode 1 two guys thought it a "good" idea to make their cars out like the spaceships of the older Star Wars. One was a TIE-fighter and the other was the Millenium Falcon. After this they tried to re-enact a fight scene at full-speed through a crowded parking lot.
-Many a light-saber duels during Episode 1. Funny thing was we'd confiscate them and play with them on our breaks. Later to break them, but oh well
-Caught many people in the act in the theaters as well as in their cars around the back.
-Scared the shit out of stoners getting high many times
-Chased birds out of the bathroom, which is very hard to do with the exit being a single hallway, and scared a lot of customers in the process.
-Played many games of "Garbage-can Bowling" whenever bored while an usher.
-Also while an usher, witnessed a couple ballroom dance during the credits of "Midsummer Night's Dream".
-Watched a fellow co-worker set his pants on fire and proceed to put it out with the fireextinguisher while in the theater.
-While in box office witnessed a huge Semi, while taking a poorly-coordinated turn, bend a stop sign in half and take out a fire hydrant. All this after I had just told a co-worker how slow a day it was.
-Haven't dealt with any deaths yet, but had to calm a crowd of 200 while my manager helped a man who had had a stroke.

Thass all I can relly think of now....

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-25-2002, 03:00 AM:

I have a customer in Granby, CO. that had a mom and her two kids come in for an afternoon show one day. The mom bought the tickets and then went to ask the kids what they wanted to eat. She noticed that one kid was gone and asked the other one where his brother is.....
The brother replyed that he was outside throwing up. The person behind the candy counter asked if she could help, but the mother replyed "no, the smell of the popcorn makes him sick". In a minuite the kid comes back in and the lady behind the counter asks the kid if he'll need a popcorn bucket in case of another emergency.....the mother replys "no, he'll be ok". Just as she says that he throws up again all over the lobby carpeting!
Mark

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-27-2002, 11:12 PM:

Paul said: "-Also while an usher, witnessed a couple ballroom dance during the credits of "Midsummer Night's Dream". "

Now that you mention it, I saw a couple dancing to some slow song during the intermission music. Right in the front of the auditorium! I don't think there was anyone else in there. I laughed.

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This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by Josh Mitoska (Member # 1086) on 01-28-2002, 01:16 AM:

I was scared to death when I was running my first theetre at age 18, I was in cleaning one night all by myslef and I heard someone talking to me over my soundsyetem. We had always joked about the theatre being haunted because it was about 60 years old. But I actually heard someone say my name and start yelling, but it was coming through the speakers. I freeked out and went home. It happened a few days later, and come to find out it was these crazy hillbillies with this insanly powerful CB radio's that were in my parking lot. They just happened to be talking to someone with the same name as me and for some reason my speakers would pick up their cb frequencies sometimes!

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 01-30-2002, 03:10 AM:

Paul:

I'm rolling on the floor laughing. The remains of a burnt trampoline??? What the hell was going on?

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 02-01-2002, 12:03 PM:

Mike,

I believe I wrote this in another thread, but I forgot which one so here it goes.
A friend of mine at the time, who was also a manager, found this ratty old trampoline by the dumpster and brought it up to the rear outside balcony (for what reason I don't know). Well as time passed the trampoline just stayed there and this manager was transferred to another theater.
Well a fellow projectionist was later also being transferred (this was due to a GM that everyone disliked greatly), and since she had made a lot of friends they decided to throw her a little "goodbye party" on the same night we build-up prints and screen them. Well since we were only receiving two prints and losing one I decided to stay to build, but I had to leave soon after because I had to open the next morning.
While I was leaving the people for the "party" showed up, who were all fellow managers and thus were allowed to be there. Thinking everything was going to be fine I left.
The next morning I arrived in my booth to find candy wrappers and food everywhere, opened cans just left on the floor-not put away, the build-up table a mess, and yes the famous trampoline on the parking lot below burned to a crisp. Furious I immediately called up the head projectionist and exclaimed what I had just walked in to find then the "honoree" of the previous night's party called up shortly after.
Well to shorten up this story A LOT, turns out the old friend who first discovered the trampoline thought it a good idea to proceed to set in on fire on the rear balcony (under a fire sprinkler I might add, it was a wonder it didn't go off), and chuck it off onto the pavement below. Well needless to say that guy was fired shortly after the news reached the DM, and others at the party were reprimanded severely. There were also some rumors that some molotov cocktails were made and thrown from the balcony as well, but no evidence was found or followed up on. I was tempted to write a policy and post it in the booth on Regal's views on trampolines and the handling of them within the company but never got around to it

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-01-2002, 01:55 PM:

At Regal they had a list of things not allowed in the booth, some of them were pretty strange (like exercise equipment). I guessed there must have been a story behind each thing listed there

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 02-01-2002, 05:20 PM:

Jesse if you can could you send me this list, I just wanna check it out.

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 02-01-2002, 07:16 PM:

No, post it here.
I wanna see this.

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 02-01-2002, 07:40 PM:

Good idea James, post it here!

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 02-01-2002, 11:09 PM:

I'll try to get you guys the list tomorrow. I don't have every item memorized, but the list includes such items as:

alarm clocks
radios
tape players
CD players
MD players
portable TV's
video games
PC's

Etc.... I guess they don't want people goofing off and getting distracted, which I can understand. The only reason I can think of behind the alarm clock is so people don't take naps between shows?? I don't remember excercise equipment on the list, but I'll check.

------------------
This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by Neil Hunter (Member # 1005) on 02-01-2002, 11:39 PM:

The strangest thing I have ever seen in a theater happened last year when I was working at a 16-plex in New York. When Jurassic Park III was out last summer, there was a group of maybe ten or so teenage girls that came dressed up like dinosaurs to see that movie. They were yelling and screaming trying to sound like the dinos in the movie. You could hear them coming a mile away. The manager and I were in that auditorium almost the entire show waiting for them to do something to get them kicked out. That manager was on a "Let's-get-someone-thrown-out-tonight" kick. Sadly, though, they stayed quiet through the feature.

Turns out, it was an end-of-year celebration rite-of-passage for the soccer team they were part of. Strange, huh?

Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 06-19-2002, 11:33 AM:

I have had many strange things, but here are just a few:

1) My theater was build in 1916, so of course we had a group of bats living in the upper dressing rooms. Every once in a while they would decide to visit the people in the auditorium People would start scooching down in their seats and come out and say "There is a bat in there", we would reply "No it's just a bird, go sit down". On the same "bat" thing, a bat got caught in the booth with one of the owners. She was so scared she wet her pants. Not that's humor

2) We had a customer that we called "The Mad Crapper", he was a local weirdo that came a lot. When he was in the theater there would always "appear" a pile of crap on the mensroom floor.

3) After the 9:30 show of "Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles" when we were cleaning after being sold out all day. We got to the front row, now it is about 12:00 a.m. There was a 4 year old child sound alseep. We were crapping ourselves. Where were the parents this late, and didn't they miss this child. As anyone who has kids knows it is almost impossible to wake up a sound-asleep child. So we just left him sleeping while we called the police. They came and found the "Mom" waiting for this 4-year old child outside in her car. She thought it was odd that he hadn't come out yet. The police were not happy with her needless to say.

Posted by Tony Ratcliff (Member # 1196) on 06-19-2002, 04:43 PM:

One of my best stories was from our showing of Batman Forever - had two real bats circling in the auditorium.
That added a little "atmosphere".

Tony Ratcliff
Ohio Theatre
Madison, IN

Posted by Kyle Caudill (Member # 1252) on 06-20-2002, 12:41 AM:

I was working box office when this really attractive spanish speaking lady came up to buy a ticket. Of course how she spoke was enough to send me off the deep end. When she proceeded to speak in the norcom she managed to place her right breast into the hole where we exchange the money and tickets. Needless to say, my mouth fell open. I turned and looked at my manager at the time and his mouth had hit the floor and he had dropped the phone. When it came time to get her money, she pulled out her breast gave me the money and then calmly placed her breast back into the window while I printed up the ticket and got her change.