On June 6, 1933, the first drive-in movie opened. (Today in...

On June 6, 1933, the first drive-in movie opened. (Today in history!)

There was one drive-in theater in Memphis when I was growing up (one that I knew about – and what do you know, it’s still open!) I used to think it would be cool to watch something there, but my mom argued (probably rightly) that it would be much more comfortable to watch a movie at home than in the car. Because let’s face it, I would have been going with her, and not been making out with a boy.

When drive-ins first started, they were home to mainly B movies (your monster flicks and what have you) – one of the last B movies I saw was Spiceworld, because I’m not all that big on monsters.

And let’s face it: I would watch this movie again if there weren’t a birth in it. So it was pretty scary after all.

The House on Haunted Hill is about a guy who opens a contest: whoever can spend the night in this rickety old mansion gets a huge cash prize ($10,000, which almost doesn’t seem like enough, but I don’t know what sleeping in a haunted house goes for these days with inflation).

But this kind of proposition isn’t anything new. In 1850, Charles Dickens started a rumor that anyone willing to spend the night in Madame Tussauds’ Chamber of Horrors would get a monetary reward, and people tried it! I wrote about it a few weeks ago.

And while I might be tempted to accept someone’s million dollar offer to sleep somewhere scary, realistically speaking I can’t walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning a light on, so I wouldn’t be much competition.