When I was a kid and went to the movies, the “previews” of movies to come (and there were never more than 1 or 2 shown) were called “trailers.” Today, they’re still often referred to as trailers even though they’re shown before the movie.
For both my faithful readers who are too young to remember how things used to be, let me explain.
When I was growing up, the movie theater started showing the movie —at, say, one o’clock. It always started with a cartoon and during the week, a newsreel came next and then the movie. You paid your money (10 cents for kids and a quarter for adults) and came in any time you wanted — before the movie started or in the middle — didn’t matter. After the movie ended, the screen never went blank. At the end of the movie “trailers” showing scenes from the next movie (or two) the theater was gong to show came on and when they were finished, the cartoon, newsreels, and movie started again. It didn’t matter if you set through the movie two or three times, it still just cost a dime, or quarter. They never cleared the theater until the final showing and the theater closed.
So obviously during my younger days the term “trailer” made a lot of sense.
The first movie trailer was shown at the end of a “serial.” Serials were kind of like TV shows that lead up to some dramatic climax and then flash on the screen that the episode will be continued next week. When I was a kid, all the movie theaters showed serials after the cartoon and before the movie on Fridays and Saturdays. Anyhow, at the end of each serial episode, there wold be a short film teasing you to come back next week to see what happens…. just like a “preview” today — an advertisement for a coming attraction. These were called trailers and the name stuck.
Hollywood has periodically attempted to introduce other names for these advertisements, like Previews and Prevues of Coming Attractions, but for some reason trailer has remained the preferred name in the movie industry.
So trailers aren’t just for trucks and people that live in West Virginia, they’re for the movies too — even if they are shown in the wrong place….
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