THE E.T. CAFE

Destination Moon, directed by Irving Pichel was released in 1950. Its claim to fame was that it starred Grace Stafford who was better known as the voice of Woody Woodpecker.

It was a low budget movie where you could see all the studio lights reflected in the visors of the actors helmets, but despite this, it still won an Oscar for the best special effects which were devised by Lee Zavitz, who later went on to work on the Pink Panthar. It had a poor reception in the U.S. and Jim Moran was hired to make it a success in Europe. He created a series of stunts all over Europe with actors wearing helmets and costumes with the name of the film on them. Then he created a series of tea parties with the actors that were held in bomb craters, which resembled a moonscape. France, Belgium, Holland and England were only four of the venues for these tea parties. Moran introduced an extra terrestrial street café to promote the movie and generate more interest in it.

The film was such a success in Europe that Moran took the idea to NASA to explain space travel to the public.