If Thomas Edison, or anyone else, despaired when his kinetoscope invention was exploited within five years by the next big thing, it was lost on early movie fans. They flocked to the new kinetoscope ‘parlor’ off Times Square to see the moving images with friends and family. That primordial multiplex featured 10 kinetoscopic ‘movies’, including one of a strongman client of Florenz Ziegfeld. A relentless flow of innovations followed, representing humanity and its fables ever more realistically, and ultimately, fantastically.