Hypnotic Holiday Inn, Somewhere, USA, 1962
Behold the glory of the iconic Holiday Inn sign. So gigantic it simply miniaturizes the trio of tourists posing beside it. The optimistic “hand-written” font blazing the name across the sky is nearly hypnotic. The colors are clownish and cartoonish. And if you forget where you are, not a problem, this sign tells you. How convenient! If that doesn’t charm you, perhaps FREE TV and SWIMMING POOL will.
With the opening of the first Holiday Inn in 1952, came these classic yellow, orange, and green star-studded signs. By the late 1960s, they were generously cloned from coast to coast. Today Holiday Inn is a worldwide operation but, surprisingly, not one of these original still stands.
Second only to King Elvis, Holiday Inn is the most famous brand name to ever come out of Memphis, Tennessee. The movie, starring Bing Crosby, was inspired by the festive name. Holiday Inn has a nice ring to it and sounds much better than Holiday Motel!
Here’s to Holiday Inn signs and you!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles, CA
View more great vintage slides of Americana!
Hey there Charles,
Did you really mean to write this?
“The movie, starring Bing Crosby, was inspired by the festive name.”
Or did I misread that? The movie came out about 10 years before the first H.I. opened, so I have a feeling it was the other way around…
Howard Johnson’s were nicer, but Holiday Inn had the sign!
For more info on Holiday Inn than you could ever hope to digest, check out this great post below, but beware- that site is a real time sink. I have been known to waste hours there.
http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot.com/2011/09/holiday-inn-worlds-innkeeper_06.html
What I recall about 1962 is how clean most of our cities were! We were
the envy of the world!
American took pride in their cities back then. I’ve checked out vintage photos
of American cities through the years and most cities including the poorest cities were clean. Even the trains were clean. Not one bit of graffiti on them.
Holiday Inn stupidly got rid of that “handwritten” font and now its logo looks cheap and ordinary. Kind of like its rooms.