It appears that yet another one of our favorite Wichita childhood haunts is heading to the graveyard. Yes, unfortunately, the Starlite Drive-In is packing up its old-school tinny sounding speakers, feeding its leftover funnel cakes to stray dogs, and closing its gates for good to join Joyland in B-grade entertainment heaven.
But what a place it was! Hell, the jingle alone is enough to spark fond memories:
“The Starlite Drive-in gives you more! Call 524-2424!”
Hearing that little jig saturate the 316 airwaves every summer made it virtually impossible to forget. I don’t even know my own work phone number, but I sure as shit remember how to dial that movie hotline. There was even a time in middle school when a girl at All Star Adventures asked for my number, and I instead – thinking I was super funny – gave her the Starlite’s digits. (Not the smoothest move, considering that I wasn’t exactly getting lots of attention from the ladies while sporting my bowl cut and multiple spare chins at the time).
But what “more” did it give us exactly?
Well, first of all, it gave us more bang for our buck. On some nights, you could bring a whole carload to a triple feature for like $10. And on the nights they charged per person, we just buried a half dozen or so teenagers under a giant blanket in the back of someone’s mom’s “borrowed” van, significantly cutting down on the cost…and likely helping lead to the demise of the establishment.
Though you could bring your own food and drinks, you still felt obligated to hit up the snack bar to “grab ourselves a treat.” I mean, if you didn’t wolf down a reasonably-priced funnel cake and a monster dill pickle, did you even actually go to the drive-in?
Secondly, Starlite gave us variety. We could start the night off with an animated Disney movie and end it with a bloodbath horror movie. And if you didn’t like what was playing on one screen, you just rolled on over to a new spot at Screen #2 and annoyed a new set of neighbors.
If the variety of cinematic adventures wasn’t enough to keep you entertained, then you better believe that the collection of weirdoes and garbage humans on display was amusing enough to make even Tom Green blush.
Last, but most certainly not least, The Starlite Drive-in gave us more precious memories than we probably deserved. Memories like seeing one of my first big-screen boobs. I can remember it like it was yesterday, being one amongst a gaggle of hormonal teenage boys turning their heads to the R-rated screen playing American Pie in the distance to catch a glimpse of larger than life, on-screen hooters.
Memories like not making out with anyone in the back seat while my cooler friends did.
Memories like seeing Twister for the first time and developing an intense fear of tornadoes and causing me to think that tying myself to a pipe would actually prevent me from being sucked up into one. It probably didn’t help my fear that a storm was a brewin’ while we watched the flick.
Memories like celebrating my 16th birthday with friends who really stretched their wallets out to treat me by buying a funnel cake.
Though the gates of this nostalgic establishment may be closing, it won’t close us off from remembering all the fun we had there. Thanks for keeping that outdoor movie magic alive for so long, Starlite. You’ll twinkle forever in some of our favorite memories.