Do you remember the BOWERY BOYS,
how about FRANCIS THE TALKIN MULE?
His human ‘side-kick’, Donald O’Connor, and all that NOISE
we made at the Saturday matinees, after a week of ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
There was Hopalong Cassidy and the Cisco Kid that followed Looney Tunes, Bug’s Bunny munching on a carrot and saying, “WHAT’S UP, DOC?”
There was that poor lady who supervised and sometimes blew HER LID.
Long before Elvis Presley, that’s how WE’D ROCK!
Often the projector FROZE
and Hopalong melted and his horse DID TOO!
There was pandemonium up and down the ROWS, “boos” and ‘hoots’ and our supervisor, with a flashlight, didn’t know what to DO!
Popcorn flew but then patience finally PREVAILED
and the projectionist, as calmly as possible, cemented and the film FLICKERED ON AGAIN.
Off to Hollywood our imaginations SAILED.
May those memories of the old picture shows FOREVER REIGN!
In the late Fifties and early Sixties, the times were already ‘a changin’ while a kid in Hibbing, Minnesota was still working on his songs (Bob Dylan). Elvis and rock was changing the world of high school dances, sometimes called ‘mixers.’