Somebody needs parental guidance

August 16, 2021 12:26 PM

This anti-littering PSA [SLYT] has played before every movie at the Byrd Theater in Richmond, VA since the early '80s. The audience recites every word along with it, and it may be the only thing that can truly unify this country.
posted by chinese_fashion (30 comments total)

Ssssssssssssick!


Seeing a movie at the Byrd is a must for anyone passing through Richmond with the time to do it. It's normally not a first-run theatre, but they're screening The Green Knight and for that I'm tempted to go to a movie theater for the first time since 2019.
posted by emelenjr at 12:42 PM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

The Byrd is awesome. And Richmond is the best. I really need to get back up there soon.
posted by thivaia at 12:44 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Marilyn Monroe gets her own poster in the eighties?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:53 PM on August 16, 2021

Wow, I remember seeing this there in the 80s. I miss Richmond sometimes.
posted by JanetLand at 12:56 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Is that Windsor Light Condensed they're using, the Woody Allen font?! [Content Warning: Woody Allen]
posted by chavenet at 1:00 PM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Richmond nostalgia! I used to live less than a mile from the Byrd, in the only apartment I ever had to myself, totally free of roommates or family or significant others. My family's still in the area, maybe I will suggest a Byrd trip the next time I visit (if that's ever not during a covid surge, sigh). Thanks for the memories!
posted by the primroses were over at 1:07 PM on August 16, 2021

I hadn't thought about that in years but it was just like old times! I love it! It's still so perfect.

I had many good times at the Byrd (midnight movies, Saturday matinees, special events, sometimes just regular movies) and it was always great. I think I took it for granted when I was in Richmond that I got to go to a place like that. It's beautiful! It's fun! I have very little desire to go into a movie theater right now but I would love to go to The Byrd again one day.

Since I'm going to continue to share my love of Lucy Dacus, her video "Hot and Heavy" was filmed at The Byrd (and the album cover for Home Video was also shot there). She's about 15 years younger than I am and grew up in a different part of the suburbs than I did but still, the more things change ...
posted by edencosmic at 1:22 PM on August 16, 2021 [4 favorites]

I've got nothing to add, except that the Byrd is an absolute gem of a movie theater.
posted by Vhanudux at 1:37 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Majestic Bay Theater here in Seattle had their pre-feature trailer made by the Ballard High School film club. I present to you A Trip to the Groovies.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:38 PM on August 16, 2021 [8 favorites]

Are there any captures of the audience participation?
posted by scruss at 1:44 PM on August 16, 2021

Is that Windsor Light Condensed they're using

I think it's Century Old Style with really bad keming.
posted by kaefer at 1:53 PM on August 16, 2021 [4 favorites]

Looks like it was a big influence on the owners of the "Alamo Draft House" cinemas.
posted by Dean358 at 1:58 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

> it may be the only thing that can truly unify this country.

Sadly, millions if not billions of people all around the world are pro-littering.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:03 PM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Definitely not WIndsor Light Condensed, based on the n. Closer to Garamond condensed or, yeah, maybe Century Old Style.
posted by emelenjr at 2:03 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Is the "it's pretty gross" kid (at :28) a Real Actual Actor^tm or does he just have a very familar-looking face?
posted by heyitsgogi at 2:09 PM on August 16, 2021

So. This is weird. But when I was growing up, I remember my mom specifically instructing me to leave my theater trash on the floor. Late 70s/early 80s. I vaguely recall her saying, “you’re supposed to, they pick it up.” Maybe we took soda cups to the trash. And I can even remember her being disgusted that we were expected at some theater to bring out our trash. As a teen, I was probably careless and did some of both at the theater. As an adult/college student on the west coast, it was expected that you’d carry out your trash. My mom was always kind of a fancy/proper person so it kind of still confuses me. Maybe she was just raised that way too? I can’t even figure the logic of it. Even if the theater expects trash because no one is going to search for a wrapper in the dark under seats, that’s so different from purposefully leaving your stuff behind.
posted by amanda at 2:19 PM on August 16, 2021 [6 favorites]

Our first date night out in the after times was dinner at the Citizen Burger bar (directly across the street) and Dirty Dancing at the Byrd.
posted by COD at 2:34 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Most the actors were locals (some even lived in Carytown where the theater is located) I remember them as regulars while working at the Carytown bookstore up the block. Also all the feels for Plan 9 records and the NY Deli nearby.
posted by djseafood at 2:37 PM on August 16, 2021 [5 favorites]

Ah, I introduced the theater to my daughter when she moved to Richmond for VCU.

Love the joke about censorship at the end.
posted by doctornemo at 2:38 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

So. This is weird. But when I was growing up, I remember my mom specifically instructing me to leave my theater trash on the floor. Late 70s/early 80s. I vaguely recall her saying, “you’re supposed to, they pick it up.”

You know, I remember this too! I hesitate to blame my mom, who has always been very considerate and neat as a person, but I grew up believing you should leave the stuff on the seats or armrests and I'm pretty sure she did too. I was really embarrassed in my college years when I realized I was wrong. I am very sorry.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:47 PM on August 16, 2021 [5 favorites]

I also grew up thinking you were supposed to leave trash in the movie theatre. Not spill popcorn everywhere, but just leave your empty containers there. Which seems out of character for my folks, who are the type to pick up trash every time they go for a walk on the beach. Maybe there was a time and/or place where leaving trash was the advertised thing to do, and that got passed down the generations even as customs changed?
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 4:24 PM on August 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

I actually faintly remember the trash thing as well, and I am guessing that in a time when theaters were more luxuriously staffed and the houses larger, it might have been more efficient to have staff go down each row with plastic bags than maintain enough trash can space outside the theater to accommodate the trash from a showing?
posted by tavella at 5:25 PM on August 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I know all the words! The Byrd is one of the few things I miss from living in the ex-capitol of the south.
posted by tarantula at 5:37 PM on August 16, 2021

Data point from the other direction, concerning expressly leaving trash behind in a movie theater -

Working in our local multiplex was my summer job my last 2 years in high school (at about the time this spot was made, actually), and we were actually encouraging people to take their trash with them at that time, at least. In fact, a couple times I was sent into theaters to make a personal appeal on behalf of the other ushers to remind people to take their trash to the trash cans with them "because there's only one of me and there's a whole lot of you". (I was appointed the one to do that because all the other kids were too shy.)

I wonder if the rise of the mega-blockbusters had something to do with that kind of change. There were a couple of super-crowded and super-busy movies we had in the late 80s - think like the Tim Burton Batman or Terminator 2 - where the crowds were so massive and the trash piles left behind so enormous, the manager invested in a couple leaf blowers for the ushers to blow all the trash into one pile at the front of each theater to ease in the general cleanup. Maybe smaller films simply didn't generate that much trash?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:08 PM on August 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was also taught as a child to leave the trash (but neatly). And we left through the front of the theater to the outside and I don’t even think there were trash cans along the path at all.
posted by janell at 10:26 PM on August 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is the "it's pretty gross" kid (at :28) a Real Actual Actortm or does he just have a very familar-looking face?

Is it Max Casella?
posted by WaylandSmith at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2021

In the 1990s in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Harry Lee did a promo for the Palace Theatre. It was magical.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 11:19 AM on August 17, 2021

the french film festival will be back at the byrd in march :P
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’m so glad others had that experience of being told to leave your trash! I think about it every time I’m at the theater and wonder if my memory is correct. And maybe it was also to get people out faster so you could clean and re-set the place for next showing?
posted by amanda at 7:37 AM on August 18, 2021

Hey, that's Mark Joy at the end. Pecker's dad Jimmy in Pecker (1998), and a million other things.
posted by alex4pt at 8:15 AM on August 18, 2021