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Author Topic: How did trailers (the film kind) get their name? Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 04-20-2006 08:15 AM                     I've always wondered why trailers are called trailers. They are played before the feature. Is there some story behind the name?  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-20-2006 09:19 AM                        Perhaps because in the early days it was customery for exhibitors to stuff the program with all kinds of extras "Plus Added Short Subjects" as the snipes said. There would be cartoons and always a News Reel. It was customary to run the Coming Attractions AFTER the short subjects and before the main feature. When they had double features, which was very common years ago, they would play the "B" feature first. The Coming Attractions played at the end of that first feature; the second feature was the main or "A" feature. So as for placement, yes the trailers usually did follow something. Besides, "Coming Attractions" is too much of a mouthful.  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-20-2006 09:27 AM                     It dates back from the thirties and forties. Typically, theatres would always show double features, an “A” and a “B” movie, instead of the single picture as today (with the “B” film, generally considered the lesser of the two pictures, shown first). The coming attractions were generally tacked onto the end of (they trailed) the first film. The first movie was itself usually preceded by a newsreel, cartoon or a dish-night style drawing or promotion, or, in New York and other large cities, a vaudeville act or two. This went out of vogue starting in the mid-to-late fifties/early sixties, as did the cartoon before the show.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 04-20-2006 12:20 PM                     When I was around 8 or 9 years old, I remember the Crest Drive-In in Yuma, AZ playing Woody Woodpecker cartoons and things like that before the movie began.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-20-2006 01:11 PM                     Like what I did when I ran a drive-in: Cartoon first, then first feature. Then the snakbar/trailer reel during the "intermission" then into the second feature. A common policy in operating drive-ins back then was that the screen never goes dark. It stays lit up all the time 'til the night was over. -monte  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 04-20-2006 01:25 PM                       The program ran in my area just as Monte describes, with the exception that we had triple features and just repeated the intermission (usually a 2nd clock trailer) after the 2nd feature. Yes, always cartoons in the drive-ins when I started working them. Chakeres usually played Universal shorts, so that was Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy, Beary Family, et.al. Cartoon prints at that time were notorious for being in terrible shape. However, in the summer of '76, we got a run of Fox shorts -- which were the Terrytoons -- and they were absolutely beautiful Technicolor prints! For several weeks, we got these gorgeous new prints of Terrytoon's 1940s series: Gandy Goose, Little Roquefort, Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle. True to form, they weren't very entertaining, but they sure looked good! Then, to finish out the season, we got standard crappy prints of Terry's later product: Deputy Dawg, Hector Heathcote, Silly Sidney... Those were the days, though. I sure miss 'em.  |  IP: Logged

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