My friend Earl and I spent this evening plowing through crates of old videotapes that I've had in storage for, in some cases, two decades. I'm transferring everything I want to keep to DVD and getting rid of the tapes themselves. Over the last few months, I've converted most of the labelled tapes that contain stuff worth keeping and tonight, we went through a few boxes of unlabelled ones to see what was on them.
Lots of interesting finds in those boxes, some of which caused me to wonder, "Why the hell did I keep that?" There were also loads of shows and movies I kept, blithely unaware I would someday be able to buy high-quality copies. I kept episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Dick Van Dyke Show and I had several bad bootleg videos of Disney features. It seemed like a big deal to have these in 1979. Now you can get much better copies at K-Mart.
But we also found things that aren't out on DVD and probably never will be…like I seem to have a tape of National Lampoon's Disco Beaver From Outer Space, which was one of the first original programs made for HBO. It came out in 1978 and the thing I remember most about it takes me back to 1981 when the Writers Guild went on strike over, among other things, fees for made-for-cable shows. I was brought into a Guild strategy meeting because someone thought I knew something about the technology and might help the lawyers figure out how to construct a formula for reruns of cable programming. This National Lampoon special was the best example at hand, so grown men in ties had to keep talking, over and over, about Disco Beaver From Outer Space while the fate of Hollywood employment was left to dangle.
(There were also tapes I didn't find and doubt I will. Does anyone out there have a copy of Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants?)
Here's a question that's probably just for friends in the Los Angeles area. Does anyone have a good use for a lot of old videotapes in the Beta and 3/4" U-Matic format? I have a few hundred Betamax tapes — some store-bought copies, some I taped myself. I also have around a hundred 3/4" tapes I don't want. Most of the latter have stuff on them you wouldn't want and which you'd just tape over. The Betas contain some goodies…but nothing you can't find, generally in better quality, on DVD or VHS. I'm asking folks in the L.A. area because I don't want to go through the hassle of mailing. I'd like someone to come up with a van, haul them off and put them to constructive purpose. Drop me a line if this is you.