Posted 1:33 AM by sport

I've decided to avoid regular contemporary television as well as daily newspapers, so that my cultural alienation will be closer to absolute. This means videotapes. Tonight I viewed some 1950s citizenship films and IWA wrestling from the mid-70s. Last night I watched old parades. The parades are poignant. The citizenship films are sweet. The wrestling is magically scummy: dim footage of fat guys pretending to gouge each other's eyes out in skid-row arenas not even CLOSE to half capacity. Microcephalic children and dangerous, smelly loners (of the exact type I used to avoid sitting next to at Show World) cheering it all with no evident enthusiasm.

None of this current-day slicker-than-owlshit folderol with steroid monsters hollering that exact same gruff throat bally, each with an overproduced theme song to announce his explosion-punctuated entrance.
This old stuff is so grubby you wanna wash your eyeballs after ten minutes, and all announcers, wrestlers and managers seem to be denizens of some used car lot of the damned, replete with Peter Lemongello hair and Tom Carvel charisma.
The squared circle never seemed so small... so dismal... so inviting.

In search of more video delicacies of this kind, I checked eBay and found lots of prime potential... but HOLY TOLEDO! Who knew? This one fellow purveys a line of videotapes for MARX playset enthusiasts. This has nothing to do with communist theatrics, but the sort of plastic toy layouts kids played with circa 1950 - 1980: gas stations, castles, western forts, etc. These are very popular boomer nostalgia items, and as with most collectible type stuff, MIB ("mint in box") is the ideal. So each volume of this vhs series covers one genre of playset. What would a such a video consist of? Here's a quote from the item listing:

"We put you in the worlds of the Marx playset, show complete sets, full displays, sometimes even the rarest of experiences: MIB openings! It's the best way to spend a rainy day with friends and vintage toys from the Atomic Age!"

"MIB OPENINGS!" The tapes show collectors OPENING THE OLD BOXES! This is TOY PORN!
Now... an open request.
Some of you folks as old or (gasp) older than me... or some of you young 'uns whose parents or elder siblings got in early on the vhs thing... may have an archive of nearly-forgotten crap you taped off television years ago.
Maybe a stray episode of THAT'S INCREDIBLE!
Maybe some random EYEWITNESS NEWS broadcast your cousin happened to appear on.
Perhaps a PRICE IS RIGHT from '81 where your granny never got to "come on down" but could clearly be seen as the camera panned the audience.
Anything?
A DINAH SHORE SHOW somebody caught because a favorite singer was scheduled to appear?

If so, and ESPECIALLY if the COMMERCIALS are intact, let's talk turkey. I'm dead serious.
The more boring you think it is, the more I'll probably love it.
6 hours of the 1978 FOSTER BROOKS INVITATIONAL PRO AM DESERT CLASSIC sponsored by Williams' 'Lectric Shave?
Mmmmmm... come to Papa.
Some worse-for-wear SLP episodes of NEW ZOO REVUE your mammy taped to shut your preschool yap up?
Waaaaa-Hoooooooo!

Please! Please!