#808 – Malleable

It’s crazy the prices we will pay for things when we are a captive audience. Or maybe I should say the prices they would like us to pay. Movie theater food is probably the most famous example. I wonder what the movie theater people think as they sweep up all the obviously snuck in food garbage off of the floor in between each showing.

B O O K F O U R I S O N S A L E R I G H T N O W H A V E I M E N T I O N E D T H I S T O Y O U R E C E N T L Y ?

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44 thoughts on “#808 – Malleable”

  1. skywerwolf says:

    well i guess rumple stiltskin had his fun. still. biff has a nose for money

  2. Ray A. says:

    Last week I took my family to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom for my daughter’s birthday, and even SHE thought some of the prices were ridiculous. (She just turned eight.) The topper was in the midst of a sweltering afternoon, when we saw a vending machine, went to buy a 20-oz. soda … $3.75.

    We unanimously decided to just risk dehydration.

  3. MaskedMan says:

    My son’s favorite toy is an overpriced theme-park gee-gaw that has outlasted every name brand toy I’ve ever bought him. It was pricy, but the dang thing just goes and goes and goes and goes…

    I always take my wife to dinner before the movie – That way we get good food, and needn’t pay through the nose for it.

  4. lulululu says:

    Solid gold BENDY straw? O.o I want one.

    Do you by any chance have an RSS feed?

  5. SharkJumper says:

    Who needs RSS? He clearly keeps a buffer, as the new comic always goes up at midnight. Always.

  6. mkcompy says:

    I’ll tell you what we think when we have to clean up that stuff: “Why the hell can’t people pick up their own trash?”
    We have trash cans you know. Do the theater cleaners a favor and throw your trash away, it’s not that hard.

  7. Ashlyn says:

    Yeah he does, if you use google reader or whatever you can just search for it 🙂

  8. Arch says:

    I seem to recall hearing (but have thus far found no confirmation or disagreement to) that cinemas – at least those around here – make next to no profit off their movies. As such they keep food prices high as those are their main sources of actual income. Anyone know something concrete in terms of this?

    @lulululu
    Biff RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheBookOfBiff

  9. LazerWulf says:

    The RSS feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheBookOfBiff
    Or, if you use Firefox, you can click that orange square in the address bar.

  10. Dirrus says:

    I work at a movie theater. All we think is “why can’t these people take their trash out with them?” same as the trash from the food the theater sells.

    Also, most theater chains allow outside food now. They just don’t tell people that.

  11. dartigen says:

    Eh, my friends and I are always smuggling sushi, those little deli sandwiches, and other such delicious healthy foods into the cinema. Usually inside our bags. Funny how nobody ever checks there.

  12. Jenn says:

    @Dirrus: agreed. I used to work at a movie theater and I did repeatedly wish people would clean up after themselves. Every once in a while I would be impressed though…like one time we found the remnants of a full meal for 4 from the Olive Garden in the front row. I mean breadsticks, salad, drinks, dessert, the whole nine yards. I’ve often wondered how those people got all that into the theater without us noticing lol. You’d think we would have at least smelled the garlic…

  13. Ival says:

    Like several others, I also used to work in a movie theater, and I second the motion that the rest of you disgusting swine need to clean up behind yourselves. Leaving your trash and spilled popcorn all over the floor shows an absolute disregard for your fellow human beings who have to clean up after you slovenly masses. Doubly so for the disgusting crap some of you pull in the restrooms.

    Additionally, the reason theater food is so expensive is because theaters actually make very little (if any) money on ticket sales. Significant portions of ticket sales go towards employee wages, paying for the film, and often additional payments for securing the film ahead of other theaters, or for longer periods than usual, or just because film distribution companies are greedy bastards. Theaters make their profits at the canteen.

    That said, the small family run theater I worked at had much more reasonable prices than any other I’ve been too since, which shows that the big name cinemas are gouging the consumer far more than they need to to make a profit.

    And they wonder why nobody goes to see movies any longer.

  14. Nilly says:

    Ahh, movie theater food prices. Good memories. The local plaza one doesn’t charge much for tickets, and each of the food items is under four dollars, but for four people that adds up to nearly twenty. >.< When I was twelve, my aunt, my cousins, and me snuck tons of candy in. XD I was jittery for the next hour or two.

  15. Jordan says:

    I currently work at a movie theater and am consistently amazed at exactly how much people will pay for a bucket of popcorn and soft drink, simply astounding. I am then further shocked to see how much of these overpriced foodstuffs people just leave behind at the theater. People who sneak things in are at least courteous enough to toss their garbage as they leave usually…

  16. baughbe says:

    The Vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true.

  17. Unoriginality says:

    I love how the titles are spelling out the word Grimm.

  18. Hoyrel says:

    I used to work at an amusement park, never a theater. If you think cleaning a theater is bad, try cleaning an entire amusement part. The trash just goes on for what feels like miles and miles but is really just the entire length and breadth of the park.

    Unfortunately, you have to keep circling like a vulture just to keep the park clean, in the middle of summer, on asphalt and cement, around metal, all of which just collect and re-emit the heat making it about 120 degrees Fahrenheit (Though I will swear under oath that it feels more like centigrade.

    PLUS, there’s the restrooms, which are the primary reason Horror movies no longer scare me. When going into a restroom, knowing you can’t come out until its clean scares you more than a movie, yeah…

    Why can’t people pick up their own trash when there are trashcans everywhere?

  19. Mr. Mutt says:

    @Hoyrel

    I’ve worked a theme park for 3 years, and I can second you on the horrors of the bathrooms there. I cannot fathom how people live like that.

    My only thought was (and this was dealing with them on rides) that these people check their brains in at the gates of the park. There’s just no way someone who had their brains with them would do the things some of those people at the park did.

    Working at an amusement park is a horror film.

  20. PhoenixAnew says:

    While I agree that it’s rather sloppy for people to leave their food lying around rather then throwing it away… would theaters even need to hire as many ushers as they do if everyone cleaned up after themselves? In this day and age, beyond fielding the average complaint of people talking or the film not being threaded right, isn’t an usher’s job to pick up the trash after a movie? My brother spent a long time working in theaters, as both an usher and a projectionist and my high school b/f was an assistant manager at one, so that was always my general thought on that.

    I really miss the free movies that came along with knowing someone who worked at a theater.

  21. Rasheed says:

    I was leaving a theatre once, and I noticed someone perched their bucket o’ chicken on their armrest cupholder! Don’t want to know how they got that in there!

  22. lulululu says:

    Thank you Ashlyn, Arch and LazerWulf! =D

  23. sco3tt says:

    Hey, when will book four be on sale? Solid gold bendy straw, lol.

    And theaters HATE it when you make your own food. I was making s’mores and they got all mad. It was only a small campfire for cryin’ out loud.

    And great catch Unoriginality! I hadn’t noticed that.

  24. Chris says:

    @sco3tt – Oh I forgot to mention that recently, book 4 is on sale right now!

  25. Vennificus says:

    Does anyone else have problems with the previous and forward buttons? or has the site reverse into the dark ages?

  26. shimblue says:

    Does this comic have to do with the story about the king and everything he touched turned into Gold?

    I’m trying to figure that out.

  27. Radical Edward says:

    When I buy candy at the theater’s snack bar, I rarely finish it within the time of the movie. I also buy water at the snack bar. It may be pricey, but I have enjoyed two movies over the past 6 months.

  28. Schulzy says:

    I am a movie theater people. We can’t stop you from bringing in your own snacks and stuff, and I don’t blame people for doing it. However, if you bring in a big if mini snickers, don’t leave all the wrappers on the floor. I makes me hate you.

  29. Radical Edward says:

    I used to sneak in candy when I was younger. But I never left the wrappers on the floor. Mainly because I bought regular sized candy.

  30. Heatherface says:

    Last time I saw a movie, I paid $9 for a small soda and small popcorn. I was just in shock. I don’t normally get that stuff, not since I was a kid, so if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was craving popcorn, I wouldn’t have bothered.

  31. Rhiannon says:

    I used to work for a movie theater, and sometimes it’s hard to keep people from sneaking in food. I wouldn’t pay for the movie theater popcorn myself, but at least when I sneak in food, I throw away the wrappers. I remember leaving a movie and seeing all these sunflower seed shells all over the floor. Someone had brought in sunflower seeds, sat through the movie eating them and spitting the shells onto the floor. Gross and rude! Karma will catch up with him, I swear.

  32. Linzleh says:

    I luz bendy straws!!! Biff save that…quite the stylish spit ball shooter.

  33. -2! says:

    @ Vennificus

    I am not having any problems. What browser are you using (for me it is Mozilla Firefox 3.0.11 (why is Mozilla not in the Firefox dictionary))

  34. MrD says:

    Phew, finally read ’em all! 😛

  35. JezMM says:

    I can’t believe it took me this long to realise we had a fairy tale theme this week. XD;

  36. Snuvs says:

    When I find food that was snuck in, I usually think “How did they sneak in a bag of chips and french onion dip?” that or “What is this large pizza box doing in here?”

  37. A Movie Usher says:

    I usually don’t think much of it, but I once found tupperware…

    with salad in it. And a small cooler of drinks. Really, how do you sneak that into a theater?

  38. Tofumage says:

    @shimblue Nope, this is Rumpelstiltskin, the one about a farmer’s daughter whose father bragged too loudly that she could spin straw into gold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpelstiltskin

  39. Matt Lee says:

    You can’t go wrong with a solid gold bendy straw!

  40. Kira says:

    I work at a theatre. It’s kind of upsetting, but then we realize that we do the same thing if we go to another theatre. Then again, our theatre is very well-priced compared to most since it’s a small, privately-run one. But I suppose people sneak in snacks expecting to pay an arm and a leg either way.

  41. Miles says:

    @Everyone who can’t imagine how the big stuff gets in the theaters: Via the exit doors. Not only are they not paying for food, they likely aren’t paying for tickets either.
    Also, I have walked in with bottles of beer in my cargo pants. I didn’t bother to hide at, as I said “Clank clank clank” walking in. It was kind of hard to not hear the bottles clinking together as I entered. I got only amused smiles.

  42. jenny_penny says:

    I currently work in a cinema. I don’t get surprised at finding various kinds of outside food in the screens, mainly beacuse the only time I’ll stop people bringing it in is when our general manager is on the floor (she wouldn’t take too kindly to my reasoning that we steal enough of their money at box office without making them eat their food in record time so that they can see their over-priced movie).

    I absolutely loathe individually wrapped sweets (wrappers on the floor) and napkins (especially napkins in the cup-holders). I don’t know where your napkin has been! Don’t make me pick it up! We don’t usually have gloves…

    Recently, however, it’s been the toilets that have gotten to me the most. Aside fom the usual horrors of toilets, lately I have encountered women who decide to ignore the convenient hand-dryers and instead dry their hands on toilet paper, toss it into the toilet and leave. No flush. As I am in the process of sweeping out the cubicles and flushing the damn toilets. I hope I don’t lose it with any of them cos I’d go proper ballistic!

    Also to whoever said if people cleaned up after themselves, we’d be out of a job; we usually have a max of 3 ushers a night. 1 taking tickets and 2 cleaning screens. It’s a nightmare when we have to give up one of the ushers to show people to their seats.

    *cough* Sorry for the rant…

  43. hayabusa says:

    i actually work at a theater, and have occasionally had shifts as an usher. i’ll be polite and say that snuck in food is the least of my worries when i have usher shifts now. my main job at the theater is being the most hated person, a.k.a. “That Jerk that charges so much for popcorn”. i love being asked “how do you sleep at night?”, to which i answer “i sleep in the morning, so it doesn’t matter how i sleep at night”.

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