Let's All Go to the Lobby

Let's All Go to the Lobby is a 1953 musical animated snipe played as an advertisement before the beginning of the main film. It featured talking concession stand products singing as a nuclear family of four headed to the snackbar as they sang the words "Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat" to the tune of "We Won't be Home Until Morning".

The trailer was animated by Dave Fleischer (producer of Popeye cartoons) and produced by Filmack Studios of Chicago, a company that specialized in snipes. It was part of a series of Technicolor trailers aimed at alerting audiences about a theater's newly installed concession stand.

In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the short "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Further color snipes, such as ones using a clock and featuring singing and dancing hot dogs, popcorn boxes, candy bars and other concession stand products took their cue from this trailer. Those targeted at drive-in theaters directed their patrons to the snack bar. Such shorts are still used for this purpose.

Cultural references

The film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters parodies this short by having heavy metal band Mastodon (appropriately portrayed as food items not fit for consumption) interrupting a group of movie snacks singing a similar song called "Groovy Time for a Movie Time" filled with sexual innuendo. The band then proceeds to sing their own song about the inconveniences and annoyances of movie theaters and audiences, entitled "Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife".[1]

This was also parodied in several episodes of The Simpsons, including Burns' Heir and Wild Barts Can't Be Broken.

Comic # 301 of The Order of the Stick[2] likewise parodies the short, and includes more helpful movie etiquette.

External links

• Short online at Filmack website
• Let's All Go to the Lobby at IMDb
• Youtube "Let's All Go To The Lobby" 1950 Video