David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: Wallis

  • VHS Revue 45 – Yogi’s First Christmas (1992)

    Highlights from a 1992 VHS tape of “Yogi’s First Christmas”. Presented by David M. Green.

    Featuring:
    – Seven’s Family Christmas message from Mike Smithson & Dixie Marshall
    – Wallis Cinemas TVC with seat belts
    – Beyond 2000 promo with primitive CGI Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe “actors being brought back to life for the movies of the future”
    – Beyond 2000 promo with a man in one of those spinning sphere things
    – Sony Handycam from City International Duty Free TVC
    – The 1992 Carols Celebration at Campbelltown Oval TVC with “BBQ tea” (special guest appearance by TV’s Andrew Maj)
    – Whitehouse Furniture TVC with a “I’m a Lumberjack-esque” jingle
    – Green’s groceries TVC
    – Seven Promo for Bony and Pacific Power’s Carols in the Domain
    – Clarksons glass repair TVC
    – Super Seal plastic bag sealer infomercial from Demtel

    Footage recorded from Adelaide’s Channel Seven in December 1992 and used here for review, parody and satirical purposes.

    Special thanks to Alexis Kotlowy, John Hnatowych, Andrew Maj, Jason Evans, Hannah Green, Annika Samuelsson, Carolyn Lawlor-Smith, Nigel Charman, Zoe Charman and our generous supporters on Patreon.

    VHS Revue Links:

    DMG

  • Time Travel IS POSSIBLE!

    I did it.

    Last Friday night, I successfully travelled back in time to 1984, when Jemima and I went to the Wallis Mainline Drive-in movie theatre in Adelaide’s fabulous northern suburbs!

    I hadn’t been to the drive-in since 1995, when my Dad took my sister and I to a Jim Carey double feature (The Mask + Dumb & Dumber) at what is now a housing estate opposite the Warradale barracks. But 48 hours ago I was living the in-vehicle outdoor cinema experience once again, sitting in my car watching Star Trek XI (great!) and Wolverine (ok) at the Gepps Cross drive-in with my best gal by my side. A fantastic date, ’twas.

    But it was also sad… The place was filled to perhaps 15% of capacity, and the staff, as well as the facilities, were aged long past the prime of their respected “hay-days.” The snack bar decor clearly hadn’t been updated since the place opened in 19(cough cough)8. Pastel shades of pink and blue and “candy” spelled as “Kandi” greeted the motor-movie patrons upon entry. Surprisingly, the prices were cheaper than what one would expect to pay at a traditional cinema, with a much larger range of confectioneries and hot foods too.

    Outside, waist-high white poles with red tops marked recommended locations to park and view. Some of them also featured broken and rusting speaker boxes, relics of a by-gone era, as the audio is now broadcast on an FM frequency and listened to via each car’s own audio system. As I’m not an idiot, I of course remembered to turn on the engine between the two movies, to avoid a flat battery. At least one other car forgot to do this. I imagine flat batteries must occur so often at the drive-in, I was surprised they didn’t have a warning during the previews. I was also pondering… I wonder, if one lived nearby the drive-in, theoretically one could “pirate” a movie’s soundtrack by tuning their radio to (I forget the frequency) and recording using a few blank cassettes? Would there be a market for bootleg audio cassettes of latest release movies? Something to listen to in the car perhaps?

    In conclusion, a good old-fashioned, wholesome fun night out, with movies, cars and plenty of frotteurism in the dark. I highly recommend it. The drive-in, that is. Obviously, bring your own car and girlfriend.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Enjoyer of fine Kandi

  • If only it was still profitable…

    Hey there,

    Well as promised in my previous blog entry, Jemima and I did indeed venture once more to Glenelg to take advantage of the free session of Gone with the Wind on the final day of screening at Glenelg Cinema. It’s a sad day. Not least because I put my resume in there about 6 months ago and they stringed me along for 5 months telling me they were hiring soon… hehe, how ironic, seeing as though I just got a job at the Palace Nova cinema… Glenelg would have been a great place to work though. I’ve been wanting to work there for a long time. Pretty much ever since my good friend Tim Wray started working there back in 2003. I remember one occasion seeing him at the candy bar. I asked if he could give discounts. He very professionally said “no” before smashing a choc-top ice-cream onto the counter and selling me the defective product at a massive discount. And he told me it was such a great place to work; great pay and not that much work to do. That’s the problem with great work places: if there’s not much work to do it means business isn’t going to well, and inevitably you’ll probably lose your jobs when the place closes down, just like me at GameTraders Mitcham. No one ever came into that shop! Here’s a close-up of my head…

    But I have so many memories from the Glenelg Cinema. Heck, I’ve been going there as long as I can remember. Before Greater Union Marion opened in 1997, if we wanted to see a movie it was generally either Glenelg or Noarlunga. There were cinemas in the city too, but we generally kept to the suburban ones. My earliest memory at Glenelg was in 1994. My grandma, who at the time was living in West Lakes, took my sister Alice and I to see The Little Rascals. However it was sold out, so we sat in the adjacent mall (now demolished) trying to work out what to do. We eventually decided to see The Mask, starring a little known Jim Carey. I had a great time! And to this day I have never seen The Little Rascals.

    Another good memory was from one of the last days of Year 10 in 2002. For some reason, the Year 10 co-ordinator thought we were all mature enough to go see Molokai, a movie about a priest going to a leper colony in the mid-1800s. Boy was he wrong. Kids were yelling and laughing and throwing popcorn and shining laser pointers on the screen and at the back of teachers’ heads. And that was probably the last time I ever bought a tin of Kool Mints. You can’t get them in tins any more. Real shame. Oh there used to be this brand of potato chips as well that they don’t make any more. I forget their name. They were similar to Kettle Chips. Very oily and irregularly shaped. Fantastic. I think I’m starting to sound old?

    Something else I remember about Glenelg for no reason other than I have a great memory… I saw all 3 of the Mummy movies there. The first one in 1999 with my then friend Robert Elkson, the 2nd in 2001 with my then friend Craig Markham, and then the 3rd in 2008 with my then (and now) girlfriend Jemima. And it was with her that I saw the 2nd to last ever screening; the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind. We were the youngest people there by about 4 generations. And everybody gasped and applauded when Clark Gable uttered that famous line, the line you sit through the proceeding 4 hours to see, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” A fitting phrase also for the profit-driven go-go world of commercialism, in regard to the Glenelg Cinema. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love making money. I just wish they would replace the Glenelg cinema with a newer, better cinema, instead of just tearing it down and turning it into some boutique shops and a multi-storey car park. Oh well, we’ll always have the memories…

    Kind regards,
    Cinema’s David M. Green
    Probably ate too much popcorn…