February 13, 2016

Trailers AKA Movie Previews

The Movie Trailer as Art Form

Before the summer blockbuster arrived in the mid–70s, I think movie  trailers were mostly rote advertisements following a tried and true formula with a special voice over. But as I grew up and for as long as I can remember I have enjoyed watching movie trailers. I like to get to any movie at the theater plenty early so I know I'll be able to watch the movie trailers and see what's going to be arriving in the next year.

This movie that features another take on The Joker, the beloved criminal mastermind that Cesar Romero made famous in the campy '60s Batman TV series. 

When I was younger, I thought it was cool to try to "compare" trailers to the movie that actually showed up in theaters. Sometimes, parts of trailers never made it into the movies. I know that that happened with The Burbs and Batman back in the late '80s. I've continued to watch trailers the same way since middle school. It's probably the reason I never minded writing compare/contrast papers in high school and college.

I've often said that I would go to the movies and pay to watch two hours of trailers. I don't know why I enjoy trailers so much because some of the garbage they preview is so bad you know you wouldn't go. But some of the movies are actually good.

That's what's cool about youtube.com and the Apple movie previews. You can watch trailers all day long — and on a smart TV you can cue them up and watch several in a row. If you see something previewed and want to watch it again, you can call it right up on your TV in your own home. Sometimes VHS tapes would include the trailer to the movie you were watching but DVDs changed that game. They included (because of move room on the disk) previews for the current movie and other movies.

The first time I remember a trailer it was on TV and it was previewing the upcoming motorcycle police show. NBC previewed the show constantly and I couldn't wait to see CHiPs when it finally debuted. One of my favorite shows of all time, CHiPs finally met its demise when NBC moved the show to a ridiculous Sunday night at 7 p.m. in the early 1980s.

Do you want to watch a cool trailer? I'll post it below and you can decide which TV show was based on it. And this movie has never arrived on DVD, Bluray, or any format for that matter …




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