Ballyhoo (Mar 26, 1954)

Page scan 0005 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Mar 26, 1954
Volume:
Ballyhoo (Mar 26, 1954) Ontario 'B' District
Leaf #:
0005
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Global Cinema, and Hollywood Studio System
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Greig Dymond in memory of David Dymond, Paul Moore and Jessica Whitehead
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:

Ballyhoo

  • Ontario 'B' District Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1952-55)
  • Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’, editor: Dan Krendel (1955)
  • National Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1956-57)
  • Time Out for Ticket Talk, editor: Norman Barker (1960-61)

Ballyhoo (1952-61) was published by Famous Players Canadian Corporation as a mimeographed internal sales and theatre managers’ newsletter. Editor, Dan Krendel, had been division manager of the Ontario ‘B’ District since 1942, and initially created Ballyhoo in 1952 to circulate weekly updates for a regional sales contest. Ontario ‘B’ District Ballyhoo continued until 1955 as a tool for sharing and incentivizing new sales techniques and publicity methods as the movie business declined in the face of television and the baby boom.

In Fall 1955, Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’ was a nationwide sales contest, named for Famous Players’ president J. J. Fitzgibbons, honouring his 25th year as head of the business. Dan Krendel was made National Drive Captain and edited a weekly newsletter for the campaign.

From 1956 until at least 1957, National Ballyhoo was published weekly with Krendel as editor. He continued the style and content developed earlier for his Ontario ‘B’ District, but now extended vastly for a chain-wide coast to coast scale. Ballyhoo’s sharing promotional tools came at a time of contracting box office as television and automobile ownership became prevalent in the mid-1950s.

By 1960 until at least 1961, Time Out for Ticket Talk continued as a mimeographed newsletter, edited by Norman Barker of the head office publicity department. Time Out was compiled on a less ambitious scale than Ballyhoo. Compared to the earlier national compilation of local publicity gimmicks, Time Out often contained only a single memo or reproduced local story, and was often undated and only informally edited.

– Paul Moore, March 2024

Date Added:
April 11, 2024
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ROYAL GUELPH Ted's starting to cook oo. with gas. Almost like old times ooo I see a coupls of dandy tear sheets ... The Fox News had a shot of our P.M. inspecting the ship's company of HMNCS Grusader in Tokyo .o0. ono of Guelph's young men appeared in the shot ooo So eco FeG. £ast talked the local Merevry into running a swell three column picture on their FRONI] PAGE, no less, with mention of the newsreel currently showing et the Royal, This is real stuff ... You're on the ball, boy. An excellent three quarter page ad by Love's T.V. netted Ted lots of space, including a full mat from the press book, and a heading which read oo. "dust like MONEY FROM HOME, our trade-in allowance" ... Wonder what picture the lad was plugging ooo In addition to the above, a good two columr scene on MONEY FROM HOME on an off-theatre page. GAPITOL = ST. KITTS Por his playdate on TORCH SONG, Vern's assistant, Arlie Kataman Game up with this ... 500 small cards were imprinted with copy like so ... "Just so that you don’t light up like a TORGH, when you find your parking meter expired, we have pus in a penny for you oo. Etc." Lots of pic and theatre mention. An old gag with a new twist. TIVOLI = HAMILTON "The best laid plans of mice and nen" ete. However, even though his deal with the Speetator didn't jell, dames managed to come up with some pretty good selling on TWELVE MILE REEF. One woek befere opening he had a fine "gag" radio campaign ... for free, natch ... over GHMIL. One of the local D.J.'s worried his listeners silly, trying te find a live octopus, zo less, for use as a lobby display. Jim reports that the disc jock did a wonderful comedy job on this, and kept it up continuously for three nights. No ectopus, but plenty of good, live publicity for Jamesie's flickery. A good display of desp sea fishing equipment in his lebby had the locals gawking ... and resulted in similar displays in the windows of throe local sporting goods stores. z dim gug up a local character who was supposed to have been a sponge diver at one point in his career ... ( Jim adds in an aside that his personal opinion is that he was just a "Sponger® ) However, our Janes manoeuvered him into John Robinson's office, and came out of the deal with a very humorous column in the Spec, as cniy Johnny can write it. Beantyland Salon came through with good art and credits in their 400 line ad in the Speco We're always sure of something novel from the Tivoli in the Ambitious City ... James is right in there pitching ... on EVERY attraction. Weuldn't hurt some of you other lads to copy a few of his gags.