43. Peck’s Bad Boy—Really Bad 2017-06-14T11:57:16+00:00

43. The Arts-Story Shows

Peck’s Bad Boy-Really Bad

Shows that created an evening’s entertainment based on a single story (or themed stories), became more common after 1900.  Peck’s Bad Boy began as a series of newspaper shorts, and eventually became a book, a play, and here, in 1902, a set of lantern slides with accompanying movies and posters—all distributed by Sears Roebuck.

In this large poster (23 x 35”) the short supplemental movies are never explicitly mentioned, their existence only alluded to by the sentence, “This entertainment is something radically different from anything you’ve seen before.”  Other versions of the poster referred to the movies, but here the “Magnificent Life Size Illuminated Views” get all the billing.

Two slides show the Boy causing trouble by pointing out to Ma one of Pa’s dalliances. Note the slap-dash coloring, and the stop-action motion.  The show was, so it was claimed, “A Sure Cure for the Blues.”

Archival Notes
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