Ballyhoo (Jun 1960)

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Jun 1960
Volume:
Time Out for Ticket Talk (Jun 1960, no date)
Leaf #:
0002
Language:
English
Collection:
Hollywood Studio System, Global Cinema, and Canada
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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-2 Junior Fire Department and we have made several appearances on his show, to stir up interest with our children. On one show, we presented the Cap with a tie bar that had a Fireman's axe on it and invited him to be our guest at the opening Junior Fire Department Show. At that time, he made a remark that he had always wanted a Fireman's axe and thanked us for making his wish come true. This gave us an idea and we took an old axe from the . Central Fire Hall to one of our local industries and had them make up a new hardwood handle and chrome plate the blade. This was then mounted on a plywood frame by one of the firemen and we presented this to the Cap. This, of course, is not normal activity maybe not even necessary but it was surprising to see the interest that it stirred up with the local kids and the good will it earned for us at the TV studio resulting in more time to root for our shows on other occasions. The type of program that we use is the standard film show that you have all used for children's shows a flat buy feature and three or four cartoons... In addition, we have a stage presentation and a prize draw. The prizes consisted of a number of varied items that were supplied by Theatre Confections Limited; three dozen bicycle locks supplied by Yale and Towne Co. Ltd., one of our local industries; cartons of Pepsi Cola, supplied by the Pepsi Cola Co; six Kodak camera outfits and eight complete fishing outfits supplied by local stores; a girl's bicycle supplied by I.0.0.F. Empire Lodge in St. Catharines; and a boy's bicycle supplied by the St. Catharines Junior Chamber of Commerce. A lobby display featuring Pepsi and prizes constantly reminded the children of these shows. Another of our activities was to organize a contest with awards of regulation hats and badges to the winners as Chief, Deputy Chief and Captain of the Junior Fire Department. The winrers were picked after the children had submitted entries on which they were required to answer a number of questions regarding