Popcorn, soda, candy, hot dogs — and a smoking spiral of mosquito repellent.
Yep. Mosquito coils really were something you could buy at a drive-in movie theater.
And if you ever spent a summer evening at one, it makes perfect sense.
Drive-ins had a problem indoor theaters didn’t have: they were outdoors.
That meant warm summer nights, grassy lots, open car windows and mosquitoes that apparently believed admission was free.
So along with your popcorn and drink, you could pick up a mosquito coil at the concession stand, light the end, let it smolder and hope every mosquito in the county decided to visit another row.
It wasn’t glamorous.
It was drive-in life.
What Was a Mosquito Coil?
If you’ve never seen one, a mosquito coil looks a little like a green spiral someone forgot to finish drawing.
You lit the outside tip, blew out the flame and let the coil slowly smolder toward the center.
As it burned, it released mosquito-repelling ingredients into the air around it. The spiral shape allowed a small coil to keep going for hours.
Which was handy when you had a movie — or two — to get through.
They came with little metal stands to keep the burning coil raised off whatever surface it was sitting on.
Simple, cheap and apparently useful enough that drive-ins turned them into another concession-stand item.
Why Were Mosquitoes Such a Problem at Drive-Ins?
Think about the setup.
Drive-in season was largely warm-weather season. Many theaters sat on big pieces of open land, often surrounded by grass, woods or fields.
Then nighttime came.
So did the mosquitoes.
And during the era of individual car speakers, you couldn’t even completely close yourself inside the car.
The metal speaker came off its post and hung over the partly open driver’s-side window.
That little opening was necessary if you wanted to hear the movie.
Unfortunately, the mosquitoes thought it was an entrance.
You can almost picture the situation: everybody settled in, movie starting, speaker hanging from the window — and somebody already swatting at their ankle.
The mosquito coil was the drive-in’s answer.
Yes, They Really Sold Mosquito Coils at the Snack Bar
This wasn’t just something a few clever moviegoers brought from home.
Drive-ins actually sold them.
Mosquito-repellent companies marketed coils directly to the drive-in theater industry, and surviving drive-in advertising told customers they could buy them right at the refreshment stand.
By the 1960s, mosquito repellent was being listed in drive-in industry publications right alongside things such as speakers, projection equipment and concession supplies.
By the 1970s, manufacturers were pitching mosquito coils to theater owners as something else they could sell to customers.
Somebody actually sat down and worked out that there was money to be made from mosquitoes.
Of course there was.
Popcorn had a profit margin.
Apparently bugs did too.
Where Did You Put the Mosquito Coil?
This is one of those things where people seem to remember doing it a little differently.
The coils came with small metal holders, and they could be placed outside the vehicle where the smoke could drift around the car.
I remember coils being put up on top of cars or trucks.
I am sure somebody, somewhere, had a system they swore worked better than everybody else’s.
That was probably half the fun of the drive-in anyway.
Everybody had their own setup.
Where to park.
How far to open the windows.
Where the kids sat.
Who went to the snack bar.
And apparently, where to put the mosquito coil.
The important thing was simply getting the smoke around the area where everyone was sitting instead of letting it blow harmlessly into the next county.
Mosquitoes Weren’t the Only Thing Drive-Ins Had to Deal With
This is one of the things I love about old drive-ins.
When you really start looking at how they operated, you realize just how many problems they had to solve that an indoor theater never had to think about.
Too cold?
Some drive-ins offered in-car heaters.
Rain blowing through that open speaker window?
There were guards made for that.
Can’t see through a fogged windshield?
That became another problem entirely.
Mosquitoes eating the customers?
Sell them a smoking spiral at the snack bar.
Drive-in operators were forever trying to make an outdoor movie theater behave just a little bit more like an indoor one.
The outdoors rarely cooperated.
Did Mosquito Coils Actually Work?
They weren’t just producing smoke for atmosphere.
Mosquito coils contain ingredients intended to repel or kill mosquitoes as the coil smolders.
How well one worked outdoors depended on things such as wind and placement.
A strong breeze could take your expensive little cloud of mosquito protection and deliver it several cars away.
But a coil didn’t have to protect the entire drive-in.
It only needed to make the area around your car a little less attractive to mosquitoes.
Whether every mosquito respected that arrangement is debatable.
Judging by the number of people who remember using coils and getting bitten, there were apparently some fairly determined mosquitoes working the drive-in circuit.
PIC and the Drive-In Connection
One of the companies strongly associated with drive-in mosquito coils was PIC.
The company traces its mosquito-repellent business back to 1953 — right in the middle of America’s drive-in boom.
PIC even advertised its coils directly to drive-in audiences, telling customers they were available at the refreshment stand.
And here’s the part I wasn’t expecting when I started looking into this:
PIC still sells mosquito coils, and the company still mentions drive-in theaters as part of its history.
A few surviving drive-ins even continue to list mosquito coils among the things customers can buy.
So technically, this isn’t quite a dead drive-in tradition.
It is just a remarkably stubborn one.
Another Little Piece of Drive-In Life
The big pieces of drive-in history are easy to remember.
The enormous screen.
The rows of cars.
The metal speakers.
The playground.
The snack bar.
But I think the little things are what make the old drive-in world interesting.
A mosquito coil quietly smoking beside a car doesn’t seem important until you realize that thousands of people probably sat through summer movies with one nearby.
It was just part of the evening.
And those little details are a big part of why I started Friday Night at Terror Glow Drive-In in the first place.
The movies are fun, but the drive-in was never only about what was on the screen.
It was the speaker hanging from your window, the trip to the snack bar, the kids wandering back from the playground, the weather doing whatever it pleased — and apparently a little spiral of mosquito repellent smoldering somewhere nearby.
Because even at the movies, mosquitoes were going to be mosquitoes.
Sources
- PIC Corporation — company history and mosquito coil information
- https://pic-corp.com/pic-mosquito/?utm_source
- Historic drive-in theater advertising for PIC mosquito coils
- https://d15g0x33mx36tg.cloudfront.net/documents/79-9124-vol55no6web.pdf
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency information on mosquito coils and pesticide products https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/ppls/003095-00026-20120508.pdf
- Wisconsin Public Radio — Skyway Drive-In history
- https://www.evergreendrivein.com/snackshack.php
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