Before screenings at the (now, sadly, defunct) UC Theatre in Berkeley, the management would play a thank you for not smoking public service announcement. A little less than half the time, they ran a cartoon of a cigarette and an ashtray flying through space on a collision course. But the favorite of the house was this PSA from John Waters:
(Mr. Waters, dressed in a very '70s wide-collared yellow shirt, stands center,
in front of a blank wall.)
Hi, I'm John Waters, and I'm here to tell you that there's no smoking allowed in this theater.
Which I just think is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.
I mean, who can sit through the length of a film,
especially a European film,
and not have a cigarette?
But don't you wish you had one right now?
So, smoke anyway,
it gives ushers jobs, and,
without smoking, there would be no employment for the youth of today.
So, please, once again,
no smoking in this theatre..
(Mr. Waters takes an exaggerated, almost grandiose French inhale from his cigarette,
and gives a satisfied and spiteful smile.)
Distribution of this reel was limited to the Landmark Theaters art-house cinema chain, for whom John Waters improvised as a show of appreciation, "I was thanking the Nuart for buying my cigarettes, paying my rent, and then they had 50 feet of film and they just said, 'Do anything,' and I just made it up, one take, a complete fluke. ...It turned into this militant smoker thing, which I was. I used to purposely light up on elevators. I smoked swimming. I smoked in the middle of the night. I set the bed on fire all of the time. ... I coughed so much that on the street, strangers would come up to me and say, 'Are you all right?' ... If I could've shot 'em, I would've."
This trailer was included on the Criterion Laserdisc release of Polyester.
AudieMcCall says I remember seeing this back in '85 at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore.
I could not have goten into a John Waters film in '85.
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