8mm Forum: Of Pizza parlors and Super 8!!!!!

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 09, 2015, 12:30 PM:

Matthew James brought up a wonderful memory (thanks Matthew!)

How many of you remember how, (for some odd reason), pizza places tended to play lots of old super 8mm films?

Ours was "Keystone Pizza"! I makes sense as, for they're advertising, they had a people dressed like Keystone Cops and they would deliver pizzas, always waving they're "billy clubs" with the other hand ...

So, it was natural that they would play old silent keystone cops films, as well as Chaplin's, Laurel and hardy's and a good supply of cartoons, almost all films being silent.

Sometime in the horrible mid 80's they got a big ole Box TV and while they would still put on the super 8's if you asked, soon the lamp burned out and they wouldn't replace it.

However, this story has a happy ending!

I met 20 years later, the grand-daughter of the people who owned the pizza place all those years ago, and she had in her garage, BOXES of all of these old cartridges of super 8!!!! (the projector had been tossed out years ago, sniff!) and they were actually going to take all those boxes down to the dump on the very next Saturday!! (it was Thursday!)

I asked if I could take them off they're hands and even offered to pay her for them. She was more than glad for me to just take them without paying her anything. They were in the way.

So, I was able, in 2005, to take all those films out of they're cartridges and spool them up on then available 400 ft reels.

They were as worn and scratchy as I even remember them in the 80's, but what incredible memories relived.

To show how corny I was (my wife thought I was mad), I made a little wood stand near the ceiling and put up a smaller screen to fit in the corner and we bought Digornio pizzas and for about two months, watched films like I used too!

The wood stand fell down, along with the Copal super 8, (hasn't functioned the same since then, odd thing that), and I didn't bother to try again. Our walls have enough holes now!

What about your pizza parlor (or otherwise), "Dining with Super 8" memories?

Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on March 10, 2015, 09:33 AM:

My memory is of Shakey's Pizza. They showed 16mm films, mostly Laurel and Hardy as well as Our Gang. We don't have them anymore by I do know that Shakey's is still operating in a few states.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 10, 2015, 02:06 PM:

You know what's so wonderful (as well as slightly pathetic)?, I still remember the Keystone Pizza adverts and jingle ...

"Keystone Pizza
Everybodies Pizza ...
You'll be smiling as you walk out the door! "

... with those Keystone Cops strutting out the door with Pizzas in hand. DANG!! I'm going to look on youtube and see if an advert of thiers is on there!!!

Posted by Joe Vannicola (Member # 4156) on March 10, 2015, 10:50 PM:

In the mid to late seventies, there was a pizza restaurant at a local mall that showed super8 Laurel and Hardy movies to the patrons. I had a film delivery route at the time. I passed by the restaurant five days a week since a few of my accounts were in the mall and would catch a few minutes of whatever comedy film they were showing before going back to my route.

Posted by Douglas Warren (Member # 1047) on March 11, 2015, 01:31 AM:

Great story Osi!Do you still own the movies from that pizza parlor? We had Shakey's Pizza in Texas when I was growing up there.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 11, 2015, 12:24 PM:

Yes, a few of them, all Chaplin's or Laurel and Hardy's as well as a few fairly rare silent titles. The cartoons I let go of years ago because all the films for our pizza parlor were silent editions, so while it didn't affect the enjoyment of the silent, it did the cartoons.

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