FISCHER: After these messages

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Exactly one year ago I wrote about pulling boxes of old VHS tapes out of my family’s acreage with the intent of seeing what would be worth preserving through digital conversion.

The first step was buying a capture card capable of converting RCA into a digital signal – something that you can use to connect a VCR to a computer and record the video coming through.

One would think that finding such a niche item would be the difficult part of this operation. Not so. That part was easy.

It’s been finding a VCR that has beguiled me for the last year.

Logic would suggest that there would be a VCR somewhere in our old farmhouse. After all, it’s not like we had all those VHS tapes for no reason. But I searched high and low and could not find one.

For a full year the hunt has persisted. I tried auctions, but either got outbid or forgot to make my bid when the time was right. I’ve tried Facebook Marketplace, but the one time I encountered a VCR there it turned out to be a dead end.

I did, some time ago, manage to secure a device, only for it to not work.

Sure, at any time I could have gone to Amazon and paid far more than I wanted to spend, but at some point the goal of securing a cheap, second-hand VCR became more important than having one at all.

And this weekend, thanks to an auction literally right under my nose, I was successful. In fact, I not only own a fully operational VCR. I own six of them!

At long last I can begin the process of going through these old VHS tapes and, in the case of the several unmarked ones, finding out what’s actually on them.

So far I’ve found a couple hours worth of late night KIMT programming from 1998, presumably recorded with the aim of watching a late broadcast of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” And while watching Tom Snyder interview a globe-trotting journalist did make for some interesting viewing, it was the commercials that really caught my attention.

Does anybody remember John Lithgow hawking 10-10-321’s long-distance phone service? How about Fabio cosplaying as Tarzan to declare that he can’t believe it’s not butter?

Did anybody every buy that singing bird clock from the National Audubon Society?

What about “Red Hot,” a collection of 35 scorching red hot hits! I never got the album of fiery red hot love songs to set my speakers ablaze, but I remember every one of the four second samples from artists including Whitesnake, Foreigner, and Belinda Carlisle featured during the commercial.

Other nostalgic discoveries I’ve made thus far include the final episode of “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” taped over a block of Cartoon Network programming and one video labeled “Tuesday Taping,” written in my handwriting, that has what I presume was the then-latest episode of “24.”

Apparently that’s how I did things before on-demand streaming services.

It’s kinda crazy. How many years has it been that it’s been commonplace to have access to any episode of any show you might want to watch at a moment’s notice? I’d nearly forgotten that there was once a time when if you didn’t make a recording of something when it aired, it was just gone unless you manage to catch a rerun.

I can’t wait to see what else turns up.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and hopes an old Saturday Morning Cartoon tape has survived the decades.