No note here about the Beany icon. Then the Cecil burger, so this is either licensed from Bob Clampett or he was an owner or investor here. Beany and Cecil were some of my favorite cartoons as a kid and I even had a Beany Propeller Hat I got for an unknown number of cereal box lids or something.
1952? The bright neon colours give it a very 1980s vibe. Surprising.
Thanks Boing. Love the cars at this time.
I was going to make the connection, but I’m puzzled by the date. (Googles.)
Wow, the puppet show started much earlier (1949) than I expected. So 1952 Beany restaurant would make perfect sense.
Does anyone know where this movie came from? I ask because the man who comes into frame at 0:52 looks an awful lot like Ray Kroc. And if this in 1952 or 53, he would have still been selling milkshake mixers to restaurants like this.
Kodachrome. It gives those nice bright colors.
The average car looks like it’s just about twice as big as today’s average car.
Funny to see the workers nicking a fry here and there.
For some reason this fascinated me this morning, as I happen to be visiting Long Beach right now. I believe this was at Ocean Ave and Ximeno. I don’t think that’s Ray Kroc, who in 1952 was still a traveling mixer salesman.
The t-shirts say Beany’s #2, and some poking around makes me think #1 was in Santa Ana:
I, too, remember Beany’s hamburger stand in Santa Ana in the early 50’s–we lived on So Broadway from 1952 to 1955. They actually had a puppet theater in back of Beany (or Beanie) and Cecil puppets. You sat in your car, ate your burgers and fries, and watched the show. I don’t know how practical that was or how long that lasted. And the cars kicked up dust since the theater was located on a dirt area behind the stand.
everyone is so well-dressed.
You know, they made a series of new Beany & Cecil cartoons in the 1980’s. That’s where I first ran into them.
And according to the comments on the video, this was worked on by the people who eventually did Ren & Stimpy (including John Kricfalusi). Little did I know, back then…
I was a devoted viewer of the first cartoon series, which must have been in reruns by then (~1963), as diaper-clad toddler. The oldest toy I can clearly remember having (along with my sister) was a Beany & Cecil record player.
As I recall, some of the original cartoon ran along with the new in the 1980 version.
John Kricfalusi, et. al., also did The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (1987), which is worth checking out.
Even funnier to see the guy at 5:17 using his bare hands on top of every ready hamburger to slide them across the grill. Might as well call them “handburgers.”
First thing I notice. We’re at a fast food joint and nobody’s fat.
True. But a lot of the obesity we associate with fast food today is the result of poverty, and in 1952 poverty tended to mean too few calories, rather than too many empty ones. (In any event, a joint like this wasn’t for poor folks.)
I wouldn’t want to go back to those days, but I sure wouldn’t mind walking around in that world for a while.
I showed this to my grandmother who lived in Long Beach around that time. She actually worked as a carhop at the Clock restaurant you can see across the street in 1956, though she doesn’t remember there being a Beany’s by then. I wonder why they didn’t even last 4 years.
You might be visiting the LBC today, but you’re at the wrong end of Ximeno. The geographical description of this place given by the film owner is correct. The Circle Drive-In was on Pacific Coast Highway, which still traverses the notorious traffic circle in this city. The circle is where Lakewood Blvd. (Ca. state hwy 19), Los Coyotes, and PCH all come together, and continues to wreak havoc with the uninitiated. Ximeno (pronounced ex-zi-men-o by locals) is close by, but the ocean is several miles south/southwest. You can see the old oil platforms and tanks of Signal Hill (a city surrounded by Long Beach) before the 2-minute mark. Beany’s was located approximately where a 24-Hour Fitness and office building currently stand.
10 minutes of Internet snooping and I think I’ve found the current location of this place. Beany’s was apparently where the current Burger King is now (or perhaps a bit further in, closer to the strip mall). The Circle Drive-In was where the white office is now. The Clock Restaurant is the current Carl’s Jr. Somebody let me know if that’s not right.
