Fun with Fotomat!
Wait, I may need to back up a bit. Many of you may not know what a Fotomat is — err, was. Well blogger Donna Pointkouski spells it out much more eloquently than I could in her explanation to her curious children:
“The Fotomat was a little shack, usually in a parking lot of a shopping center, and you would drive up to the window and drop off your film to get developed.” I explained this with the sincerity of a lesson on Ancient Rome or the Civil War.
“Film? Like a movie?” she asked. “What do you mean by ‘get developed’?”
Like any good legend, the Fotomat also lives on in song; just not terribly memorable ones. There’s a terrible rock song by a band named Interplause that uses the retroness of the term perhaps ironically — “That’s What Happens…(When You Fall in Love With a Girl at Fotomat)” — and it’s so bad I couldn’t bear to embed it. There’s even a strange “freestyle” noise band called The Fotomat Experience. They’re kinda proggy. My favorite though comes from an academically-inspired band from Columbia University: “I Sold My Soul To Fotomat” Yikes!
Of course to really get what it was all about, we’ll cut to commercials. (Important Note: According to Wikipedia, the ladies that worked in Fotomats were called “Fotomates.” Rawr!)
Animated, too!
The guy who posted this video even prepared a pickup line for when he went to Fotomat: “Let’s go out and see what develops.” Har har!
Look, it’s Mindy from Mork & Mindy!
When I went searching for print ads, I found this amazing tale of what happened to a small-town Fotomat when a tornado struck!
The atmosphere was jovial and friendly.
At first.
But then…then things took a turn for the scandalous.
You simply must read it!
As that tale illustrates, I think anyone who has had prints made participates in a shared denial that strangers are peering through their photos. This comedy skit from 1982 brings that out in sharp relief!
Fotomat – Second City by emayoh
That was heard on Dr. Demento on KMET back in the day!
If you have a Fotomat memory, please share it in the comments!
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
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Hey, thanks for using my Fotomat snapshot in this post!
I worked at Fotomat from 1987 to early 1989; I started out at the West Peabody, MA Fotomat (#BN-051, pictured above), and then became the person who covered shifts for people in other Fotomats north and west of Boston — when someone would call in sick, or get fired, or quit. I also delivered film from the central local film-processing Fotomat (a storefront Fotomat in Lexington) to the various branches.
The writing was already on the wall for Fotomat, as one-hour developing stores and cheaper options arose. Some stores I worked at would get three customers maximum during one four-hour shift. Other stores were busier, but never so busy that I had a line of cars stacked up waiting.
The best things about working at Fotomat were that you rarely had a manager breathing down your neck, the dress code was easy (you had to wear a blue Fotomat jacket sometimes), you could play the radio as loud as you wanted, etc. I was a teenager at the time I worked there, and it was one of the easiest jobs I ever had. During the summer, there was air conditioning (except for the Winchester Fotomat). During the winter, there was heat. One of the sides of the Fotomat building doubled as a door, so you didn’t have to climb in through the window.
The most frequently asked question: “Where do you go to the bathroom?” I would say, “Oh, the vast underground developing plant in the basement,” and I’d mime opening a trap door and then walking down a spiral staircase until I disappeared below the window. (like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBNHALUdNC0) The real answer: usually a Fotomat would have an agreement with a store in the strip-mall where the Fotomat was parked, like a pizza shop, where we could run to.
Another question: how do you take a lunch break? Taking a 15-minute or lunch break was easy, too: put a sign up in the window, “BACK IN N MINUTES,” and leave. If I was in a town I didn’t know too well, I would usually take my lunch break to drive in a random direction, and then try to find my way back before my shift re-started. In this way, I would eventually become familiar with the tangle of roads that overlay the Boston suburbs.
Finally, “Do you get to look at people’s pictures?” The pictures arrived at the Fotomat sealed in their processing envelope. I rarely ever peeked at people’s prints without cause, unless they were obviously abandoned — e.g. if the envelope had been in the pick-up drawer for four to six months. And it was usually obvious why the pictures weren’t picked up. One abandoned set was two middle-aged people, naked and drinking in a motel room. The main subject, a bald fat guy, looked half-asleep, slouched on the bed, legs splayed, holding a beer listlessly. Those were the only “dirty pictures” I ever saw. Pretty depressing.
Thanks for the memories!
That’s amazing. I can’t believe people would quit
Good times! Thanks for the story.
Thanks for the shout! Good (and a little scary) to learn I’m not the only Fotomat enthusiast out here. I didn’t know the employees were called Fotomates. I need time to digest that. My hometown’s Fotomate, Judy, was very nice but not at all as young and pretty as the Fotomates in the ads.
Judy is a solid name. Good memories. Thanks for stopping by.
Love this picture! Is the building still there? I have a coffee shop in Sudbury MA that used to be a fotomat. (you can see it on our facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Green-Coffee-Shop/123551887744419
I always enjoy hearing stories about folks’ experiences with these adorable old slices of Americana. I’d love to know where more are and to see what folks are doing with them these days.
I think that the Peabody Fotomat is long gone now. I know where the one in Sudbury is, though–my best friend grew up near there… Next time I’m in the area, I’ll get some of your coffee!
great! I ‘ll give you a tour of the place, too.