Charlie Chan "Shanghai Cobra" question
Paul
are Chan fans among the Laurel & Hardy faithful, and this one did star
"Our Relations" alum Sidney Toler as Chan):
Am watching this movie that's part of the new "Chanthology" DVD
collection and am wondering if the video jukebox shown in the movie--
with the woman somewhere in a control room who can answer patrons in
real time-- was something that actually existed. I know there were
video jukeboxes in the "old days" but the only ones I ever knew of
were those that played cartridges with 16mm film in them. This notion
of a "live" person playing your selections has me curious... can
anyone shed any light on it?...
BigStar303
<< Am watching this movie that's part of the new "Chanthology" DVD
collection and am wondering if the video jukebox shown in the movie--
with the woman somewhere in a control room who can answer patrons in
real time-- was something that actually existed. I know there were
video jukeboxes in the "old days" but the only ones I ever knew of
were those that played cartridges with 16mm film in them. This notion
of a "live" person playing your selections has me curious... can
anyone shed any light on it?... >>
Not on this in particular, but I know there was an equivalent on the audio side
in Pittsburgh, where you would phone in your musical selection to sort of a
central office and they would somehow pipe it to your location.
My memory of the details of this is sketchy, but apparently there were remote
stations in hundreds of bars around Pittsburgh, and the benefit was that this
central location had access to thousands of songs instead of just the 50 or so
maximum a jukebox could hold.
I imagine you could find some information about this on the internet; I know I
read a pretty detailed article about it many years ago. And I suspect other
areas besides just Pittsburgh had something similar.
Dick
In the late 40s and early 50s there were juke boxes that when you put
your money in you got an operator that would play a tune that you
requested. At that time the typical juke box would have only about 20
records so this gave a much bigger selection. The system was normally
set up in a business district so it could serve a number of bars and
restaurants.
No video though as far as I know.
Dick