THE FLIP BOOK DRIVE-IN THEATER 

Some years ago, in a remote mountainous region of the country, the Andromeda happened upon a mysterious capsule. It was cylindrical in shape, about eight feet long and three feet in diameter, and made of an unfamiliar metal. The object was crushed in the middle, like a soda can that had been stepped on. A couple of antennae protruded from the side, bent or broken, and several more lay around the site. No one had any idea exactly what the strange canister could be, but one thing was certain – it wasn’t Andromedan.

Most of the Andromedans agreed that it must have dropped out of the sky. After all, if they hadn’t made it, where else could it have come from? Once before, a similarly mysterious object had appeared out of nowhere, severely damaged as if by tremendous impact, and parts of it lay strewn about over a considerable area. It had been filled to the brim with all sorts of strange equipment, interconnected with thousands upon thousands of different colored wires. There were hundreds of tiny lights still glowing or flashing, and there was a gentle din of quiet buzzing and clicking sounds. The lights and sounds continued for several years afterwards, but eventually their power source must have died, because the device, whatever it was, gradually went dark and silent.

This capsule appeared to have a hatch along most of its length, but the damage inflicted by the apparent crash had compromised things to such an extent that it took the better part of a day to finally remove it so as to get a look inside. Once accessed, however, the capsule was found to contain a veritable trove of artifacts the likes of which the Andromedans had never seen.

Most of them were crushed, mangled or shattered, making any reasonable guess as to their intended purpose and workings impossible, and any attempts at reconstruction or reverse engineering would in all probability be futile. Some appeared to be intact, but didn’t seem to actually do anything. Hundreds of documents were recovered, in what seemed to be dozens of different languages, but the Andromedans, having a single language that has remained unchanged for millenia, had not the linguistic skills, data, or scientific insights to entertain any hope of translating them.

But one artifact was found - though very nearly missed - that quickly, if only by chance, surrendered its secret, and in so doing forever changed the weekend entertainment rituals of the Andromeda.

The object was hardly bigger than an ordinary book of matches. No wires or twinkling lights, no mysterious buzzing emanating from it. Just a couple dozen very thin square sheets, fixed together on one edge, and imprinted with an image of some terrible looking creature.

One young soldier, assigned to help assess the mysterious wreck, spotted the artifact among the debris and picked it up. Prompted more by intuition than intellectual curiosity he grasped the little book by one edge and with the thumb of his other hand casually flipped through the pages. What he saw startled him, and he very nearly dropped the little magic book. The image moved!

He did it again to make sure he wasn’t imagining things, and sure enough. The monstrous creature on the tiny pages shook his head and opened his mouth in a silent roar, reaching out at the startled soldier as if to maul him with menacing claws. The show lasted only a couple of seconds, but the young soldier was thoroughly amused and laughed out loud. After one more flick through the moving picture book he called to his officer to come and see what he had found. Soon the odd little artifact was being handed around, each soldier taking his turn to flip the pages, with the others crowding around and looking over his shoulders.

Well, it didn’t take long for the Andromedans to recognize the tremendous entertainment potential of this amazing new technology, and soon a team of engineers was hard at work to make their own moving picture book, but on a scale such that the whole community could partake in the fun together. Thus it was that the Andromedans came to construct the first ever, probably the only, flip-book drive-in theater.

Now, every weekend the Andromedans gather at the edge of town and park their vehicles in orderly semi-circular rows facing a huge wall. The “wall” is actually constructed of hundreds of thin layers, each painted with an image in a slightly different phase of motion than the one preceding it. A giant spring acts on the stack of picture planes from behind, with resistance at the top front edge provided by a large thumb-like retainer. The retainer is carefully calibrated such that when the master catch is released, the interaction of the “thumb” and spring action from behind causes the planes to fall forward steadily and evenly in rapid succession, like a giant mechanical Rolodex, producing a jerky but continuously moving image for almost fifteen seconds, to the sheer delight of the viewing audience.

Fortunately, the Andromedans are good with rigging, gears, and pulleys, so it only takes about twenty minutes to reset the device for another go. They continue at this pace throughout the evening, showing the same movie five or six times. In between, the kids play on the jungle gym, the parents eat their picnic dinners and visit, and the teenagers either make out or hang out with their friends at the snack bar.

The show changes every three months, as it takes that amount of time to paint the new picture panels, and another three days to re-configure the device. A second screen is under construction though, and will soon be ready to install. The Andromedans will then be able to enjoy double features.