© Mark Ollig
Folks attending the 1981 movie premiere of “Polyester” received numbered scratch-and-sniff cards along with their ticket.
While watching the movie, the screen would display a number prompting the movie watcher to scratch and sniff the numbered card so they could smell what was being shown on the screen.
The history of dispensing theater movie and stage-play related aromas to an audience goes back to the beginnings of the 20th century.
In 1906, Samuel Lionel Rothafel, who worked at The Family Theater in Forest City, PA, came up with an idea.
While a motion picture newsreel film of the 1906 Rose Bowl parade played inside the theater, Rothafel took a wad of cotton wool, soaked it with rose oil, and placed it in front of an electric fan directed toward the seated audience.
The fruity fragrance of roses wafted throughout the theater amid the now delighted seated patrons.
It seems as if Rothafel used good-old Minnesota ingenuity – in fact, he did. Samuel Lionel Rothafel was born in Stillwater in 1882.
By 1933, Paramount’s Rialto Theater on Broadway had installed an in-theater “smell system,” using fan blowers, which released various aromas during a movie.
After the movie was over, it took hours (sometimes days) for the odors to disappear from inside the theater building. This smell-system eventually proved unpopular.
During the late 1950s, Hans Laube invented the scent-dispensing machine.
Laube’s machine discharged a variety of smells coinciding with the events occurring during a theater movie or theatrical play.
Various mixtures and dilutions of liquid scented perfumes, including a scent neutralizer, were also dispensed.
Nov. 19, 1957, US Patent number 2,813,452, titled Motion Pictures With Synchronized Odor Emission, was awarded to Hans Laube’s odor-dispensing device named Smell-O-Vision.
He begins his patent description with, “My present invention relates to a method for causing [the] emission of appropriate odors in synchronized relation with motion pictures.”
Laube’s patent can be seen at https://bit.ly/3czZmUd.
“Scent of Mystery” is a 1960 movie using Laube’s new Scentorama machine with an updated version of Smell-O-Vision.
The Scentorama machine could circulate up to 30 different smells toward theater seats, using scent emitters activated by signal code markers on the movie’s film.
Unfortunately, the results audiences experienced were not well-received, and no future movies were shown using Smell-O-Vision.
The successful mixing of smells with your favorite movies, gaming, and television programs became a reality through a French company called Olf-Action.
The company name is no doubt a play on the word “olfactory,” referencing the sensory system used for smelling.
Olf-Action uses Odoravision for the delivery of odors or scents to an audience throughout their viewing of a motion picture film.
This method of scent-delivery is called smell-synchronization.
An in-home version of Olf-Action’s Odoravision System can administer 128 unique scents, and up to three simultaneous scents throughout one motion picture film.
A movie player’s video output connects to an Olfahome model 4045 scent-dispensing rectangular box unit weighing 44 pounds.
The box unit is attached to the ceiling approximately 10 feet in front of, and above the movie viewers, and has 40 individual, open-air nozzles, with individual scents stored inside cartridges.
Some of the scents listed included cakes, flowers, roses, wood, seawater, smoke, candies, fabrics, trees, and one I like; the smell of freshly-cut grass.
Olf-Action listed several movie titles available in Odoravision, including “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
The human nose can differentiate many unique scents.
Ernest Crocker, a chemical engineer, used a mathematical rating system to determine the number of recognizable smells a human can detect is 10,000.
It might be surprising to learn scent marketing is an industry unto itself and is used by stores, restaurants, and hotels to promote customer satisfaction and increase revenues.
Statistics show carefully selected scents will attract and influence consumer spending, and cause people to more easily remember a product.
Who knows? Smell-O-Vision might make a comeback.
In the future, after telling friends about a movie that stinks, they won’t know whether we mean the acting or the smells in it.
Nostalgically speaking, one unforgettable scent I do fondly recall while seated in my hometown’s movie theater, was the alluring popcorn aroma floating in from the front lobby’s popcorn machine.
It would not surprise me if a fan was purposely used to send those mouth-watering popcorn smells drifting into the theater seating area to tempt folks into buying more popcorn. If so, it sure worked for me.
You can see a photo of Hans Laube’s Scentorama machine at https://bit.ly/2Wm4ZPP.
I recently learned Olf-Action was acquired by the French company, Aryballe, whose motto is: We Are Digitizing Smell.
Stay safe out there.
Folks attending the 1981 movie premiere of “Polyester” received numbered scratch-and-sniff cards along with their ticket.
While watching the movie, the screen would display a number prompting the movie watcher to scratch and sniff the numbered card so they could smell what was being shown on the screen.
The history of dispensing theater movie and stage-play related aromas to an audience goes back to the beginnings of the 20th century.
In 1906, Samuel Lionel Rothafel, who worked at The Family Theater in Forest City, PA, came up with an idea.
While a motion picture newsreel film of the 1906 Rose Bowl parade played inside the theater, Rothafel took a wad of cotton wool, soaked it with rose oil, and placed it in front of an electric fan directed toward the seated audience.
The fruity fragrance of roses wafted throughout the theater amid the now delighted seated patrons.
It seems as if Rothafel used good-old Minnesota ingenuity – in fact, he did. Samuel Lionel Rothafel was born in Stillwater in 1882.
By 1933, Paramount’s Rialto Theater on Broadway had installed an in-theater “smell system,” using fan blowers, which released various aromas during a movie.
After the movie was over, it took hours (sometimes days) for the odors to disappear from inside the theater building. This smell-system eventually proved unpopular.
During the late 1950s, Hans Laube invented the scent-dispensing machine.
Laube’s machine discharged a variety of smells coinciding with the events occurring during a theater movie or theatrical play.
Various mixtures and dilutions of liquid scented perfumes, including a scent neutralizer, were also dispensed.
Nov. 19, 1957, US Patent number 2,813,452, titled Motion Pictures With Synchronized Odor Emission, was awarded to Hans Laube’s odor-dispensing device named Smell-O-Vision.
He begins his patent description with, “My present invention relates to a method for causing [the] emission of appropriate odors in synchronized relation with motion pictures.”
Laube’s patent can be seen at https://bit.ly/3czZmUd.
“Scent of Mystery” is a 1960 movie using Laube’s new Scentorama machine with an updated version of Smell-O-Vision.
The Scentorama machine could circulate up to 30 different smells toward theater seats, using scent emitters activated by signal code markers on the movie’s film.
Unfortunately, the results audiences experienced were not well-received, and no future movies were shown using Smell-O-Vision.
The successful mixing of smells with your favorite movies, gaming, and television programs became a reality through a French company called Olf-Action.
The company name is no doubt a play on the word “olfactory,” referencing the sensory system used for smelling.
Olf-Action uses Odoravision for the delivery of odors or scents to an audience throughout their viewing of a motion picture film.
This method of scent-delivery is called smell-synchronization.
An in-home version of Olf-Action’s Odoravision System can administer 128 unique scents, and up to three simultaneous scents throughout one motion picture film.
A movie player’s video output connects to an Olfahome model 4045 scent-dispensing rectangular box unit weighing 44 pounds.
The box unit is attached to the ceiling approximately 10 feet in front of, and above the movie viewers, and has 40 individual, open-air nozzles, with individual scents stored inside cartridges.
Some of the scents listed included cakes, flowers, roses, wood, seawater, smoke, candies, fabrics, trees, and one I like; the smell of freshly-cut grass.
Olf-Action listed several movie titles available in Odoravision, including “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
The human nose can differentiate many unique scents.
Ernest Crocker, a chemical engineer, used a mathematical rating system to determine the number of recognizable smells a human can detect is 10,000.
It might be surprising to learn scent marketing is an industry unto itself and is used by stores, restaurants, and hotels to promote customer satisfaction and increase revenues.
Statistics show carefully selected scents will attract and influence consumer spending, and cause people to more easily remember a product.
Who knows? Smell-O-Vision might make a comeback.
In the future, after telling friends about a movie that stinks, they won’t know whether we mean the acting or the smells in it.
Nostalgically speaking, one unforgettable scent I do fondly recall while seated in my hometown’s movie theater, was the alluring popcorn aroma floating in from the front lobby’s popcorn machine.
It would not surprise me if a fan was purposely used to send those mouth-watering popcorn smells drifting into the theater seating area to tempt folks into buying more popcorn. If so, it sure worked for me.
You can see a photo of Hans Laube’s Scentorama machine at https://bit.ly/2Wm4ZPP.
I recently learned Olf-Action was acquired by the French company, Aryballe, whose motto is: We Are Digitizing Smell.
Stay safe out there.
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