Episode 51 — REWIND THIS!

[Brett Arnold 55]

Jake welcomes documentary filmmaker Josh Johnson, director of the fantastic REWIND THIS!, on this week's episode of THE FOGELNEST FILES! Any child of the VHS era will feel right at home as Jake and Josh discuss the history of all things home video, starting with the tale of the Magnetic Video Corporation and how they revolutionized the film industry before chronicling the rise of the videotape as well as the fall of Beta & LaserDisc. Josh explains how his film came together, details the differences between shooting a documentary versus a narrative feature and shares his hilarious experiencing bootlegging GREMLINS 2. Head over to YouTube for the full playlist of this week’s episode and be sure to check out REWIND THIS! when it hits iTunes on Tuesday, August 27th.

[mattman92ish 823]

Man listening to this podcast makes me wish i had friends like Jake and Josh.. (jake and josh name for a modern odd couple show?) anyway this was super special i love hearing anything about VHS great great ep thanks Fogelnest! oh and yes Rocky Horror isnt the same but i still watch the shit out of it haha..

[klemjohansen 748]

My parents owned that JVC HR 7100 with the weird Playskool buttons. It was durable as hell. In fact, A decade or so after we bought the thing, I borrowed it and then it was stolen out of the trunk of my car right in front of their house on the evening of some holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving.

[Shannon 2953]

My boyfriend tried to throw out my VCR yesterday to make room for gaming consoles and I was very very upset. Until we finally got a DVR not long ago I was still recording my shows onto tapes. Me and my VCR are very close.

 

This episode felt strangely appropriate today.

[Kickpuncher 5012]

The struggle over keeping/dumping/upgrading movies on physical media may be the defining issue of my generation. Cool episode!

[rachelpi 228]

This was a GREAT episode, so relatable! I really want to go to my dad's house and get all the old VHS tapes. He still has our first/only VCR, too, from 1985. I don't know if it still works but he's not the type of person who would keep something that had stopped working.

 

Thanks for the tip on this documentary. I definitely want to see it when it comes out.

[GianniRed 24]

What an awesome episode. Really brought back a lot of memories of those days.

 

I discovered the magic of taping shows in 1992 as a 6th grader and ended up with 54 6-hour tapes full of stuff like The SImpsons, In Living Color, and movies taped off of HBO.

 

The discussion of the amazing box art that graced low-budget films of the time also struck a cord. I have a few favorites, but for my money, few if any VHS covers will ever top this one:

 

[lylachka 134]

The discussion of the amazing box art that graced low-budget films of the time also struck a cord. I have a few favorites, but for my money, few if any VHS covers will ever top this one:

 

What's so special about it?

 

Also, no offense to Josh Johnson but I think women were also excited about laser sounds.

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

I was thrown by this one because Josh's response times were so strange. I found myself cringing at how quiet he was until I realized that he was doing something called 'conversation' and 'listening' where you wait for the other person to finish talking before you start. Podcasts have ruined my ability to understand this form of communication.

[pepperjack 303]

My family actually had another type of rival format called Video Disc, which predated VHS (at least in availability in our area). It was a disc encased in a hard plastic case, which you had to feed into the player. You also had to flip it over halfway through the film. We rented them just like VHS starting around '82? We were loyal for several years, but eventually it was overtaken by VHS and we switched over.

 

My mom bought Jane Fonda's workout on Videodisc...

 

http://en.wikipedia....Electronic_Disc

[jakefogelnest 517]

My family actually had another type of rival format called Video Disc, which predated VHS (at least in availability in our area). It was a disc encased in a hard plastic case, which you had to feed into the player. You also had to flip it over halfway through the film. We rented them just like VHS starting around '82? We were loyal for several years, but eventually it was overtaken by VHS and we switched over.

 

My mom bought Jane Fonda's workout on Videodisc...

 

http://en.wikipedia....Electronic_Disc

Yup, CED's! These come up briefly. I have spent a lot of time on the Internet reading about these things because I am obviously super cool and productive.

[jakefogelnest 517]

And the documentary is officially out now on iTunes!

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/rewind-this!/id678902502

[Glaive 29]

...But your next show AIN'T...even though all the clips are on your YouTube feed.

[jakefogelnest 517]

...But your next show AIN'T...even though all the clips are on your YouTube feed.

I put those up early. Next show is in the queue and will be released tonight at 3:00 AM (EST) / 12:00 AM (PST) as always!

[ADoer 11]

Loved this one. It's amazing but when they played that 'Lasers' clip I absolutely had some kind of instant brain tickle - even though I did not quite know where I knew it from (until they mentioned it).

 

I think Malcolm Gladwell did a whole piece on VCRs and how they were never quite marketed properly and why most people never really figured out 90% of the uses other than eventualy insert and press play. Rewind.

 

Imagine this - I was easily able to invite 4 of the cool kids to my house after the parents borrowed one of the first BetaMax machines from the corporate office.

I believe it was something like $600 and basically just companies had them for corporate videos (i dont remember anyone having a 'home' version at the time).

 

And here's the other thing - the first video store was really a VCR sales and accessories store that also happened to have about 20 movies.

Jaws, The Howling, The Fog (ya oddly lots of horror) and you'd actually have to put your name on a list and wait 10 days.. maybe 20 days.

And man oh man.. it was a BIG BIG DEAL... i mean.. it was pure amazing magic and yes us 12 year olds certainly did figure out how to rewind a nude scene in 'The Howling'.

Burning this image into our memories for life:

 

 

[DanEngler 5249]

Let's not post full frontal nudity in the forums without a warning.