But in the end, gas grill and drippings made the flavor outstanding in all items. Oscars in Lakewood, Grissinger’s + Kens in Bixby Knolls, A&W near out high school and even in the Westside of Long Beach, the best hamburger was made at the Golden Star restaurant with a new technology called “Char-Broiled.”Īt first, charcoal was used to bring out the flavor of the hamburger. But, we were very little and young, then.īut not to knock preferences, but once other drive-in places started offering their best in hamburgers, for us, it was the food and ambience of teenage hang out places that topped going to Beany’s and the Clock. Sometimes, we would go to Beany’s to get our food and then go see a family movie at the Circle Drive In. The famous Circle Drive-In Theater was just across the street. He was a steak, fish, hamburger kind of guy and could not get enough of that end of the food chain. When Beany’s opened up, our dad could not stop taking us there. Back then, as it is, today, it was a long, relatively empty, highway from Orange County directly to Belmont Shore and downtown Long Beach. Usually dark, a perfect straight away of nearly 2.5 miles made for a start line/finish line not seen from either end cross streets. Hody’s had the advantage as their food was pretty good and the location was just a couple of miles north of the Westminster Blvd. Teens from all high schools went to other drive-in restaurants as a part of the whole cruising tour on Friday or Saturday nights. It was labeled “home court” for the Long Beach Wilson High School teens as the school is just around the corner. On the next big block South, the famous Hody’s Drive-In Restaurant was a hang out for a lot of teenagers. It was shot from the Circle Drive-In corner. Starting around :58, the view is facing South towards Seal Beach and the coastline.

The famous Traffic Circle was around the next block, the Circle Drive-In Theater across the street and the Clock Hamburger place on the odd corner. The Long Beach, California location was well known and popular. It made commercial sense to have a Beany’s Drive-In Restaurant. Add in another form of puppet, Howdy Doody and those were the top two hits for the viewing TV public. Although they were puppets, those were the hit TV shows of the early days of TV.

Nice old film digitized… As we old folks remember Beany and Cecil TV show as primitive as it was, the tie-in was a great business sense.

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