Playback the Tape, the fun event where they screen old VHS tapes, commercials and all, is back in our neighborhood. Their next event is tonight at the Coupe, starting at 7 pm, where they’ll be showing Peanuts, Miracle on 34th Street, and other old holiday videos, all from home-recorded VHS tapes, which means they’re complete with 80s and 90s commercials.
The events are a blast, it’s a fun blast of nostalgia. I went to one two Halloweens ago at the Mothership (RIP) where they showed a Garfield Halloween special, which included commercials for My Little Pony, GI Joe, Teddy Ruxpin and lots of other funny ephemera I’d forgotten about.
Here’s more about today’s event:
to filter or #nofilter… that is the question! stirring up wonderment and controversy in equal doses, the 1985 debut of a computer-colorized “miracle on 34th street” proved more a marketing fad than a technological revolution. but with hues and tones intended to evoke a previous era, did this revised version also forecast our future instagram-colored world? join us for a re-airing of its original computer-tinted television broadcast (starring the recently-deceased maureen o’hara), preceded by “this is america, charlie brown,” a retelling of the first thanksgiving fable, with peanuts playing the part of pilgrims. we’re revisiting the revisionists, holiday-style — all 100% home-recorded vhs with vintage commercials intact!
