Video Tapes and Me

When I think about what's under the bed, this is usually the first things that comes to mind. Yes, that's right, it's a box of roughly fifty video tapes.

When I was small, Sesame Street, as I understand it, came on while I was in kindergarten (or maybe preschool) (perhaps they didn't run it twice a day in my neighborhood at the time) and so my mom would tape the show. Or maybe I just liked watching the episodes over and over. I've never known a time where I (or my family) didn't own a VCR - I learned how to program it quite young. Anyway, once I graduated from Sesame Street to Duck Tales, my mom began taping a lot of that. So I have several episodes of Duck Tales still, with their awesomely ridiculous and totally nostalgic 80s commercials. At this point, I also own Duck Tales on DVD, so I have been able to rid myself of some tapes.

That has been a 'to-do' of mine for the past several years - watch them and either purchase the DVD, so I can own in it an more permanent (though not permanent) format, watch it and then put the DVD on my Amazon wish list, so I can at least remember that I would like to own it again someday, or watch it and throw the tape away. Because it's going to be ridiculous enough carting around DVDs soon enough, what with that Cloud and all - I really can't be this far behind.

So last night, after taking this photo, I busted out a tape. It said "Disney cartoons and Laugh-In." It turned out to be about a cartoon and a half from a Wonderful World of Disney Valentine's Episode (it was on NBC back then!) and the 25th Anniversary of Laugh-In, which my mom taped (and presumedly watched) in 1993.

I'd never seen an episode of Laugh-In, but luckily this special spent most of it's time showing clips instead of just interviewing Goldie Hawn. I had heard the show was edgy, but, man, they got away with a lot. They spoke about the government and Vietnam in ways that, if a comedian or a show wanted to say those types of things about the messes we're in now, it'd have to be on HBO. They also successfully predicted in 1968 and '69, in their Future News segment, that Reagan would be president in twenty years and that the Berlin Wall would come down in 1989. Quite impressive.

So I stayed up late and watched the whole thing. One tape down! ... Forty-nine to go! ...