VHS Rewind!

The Return of Chris Hasler!

Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan from 1989 was not my first choice but I had such a great time watching this strange and entertaining film.  Thank you to Chris Hasler for suggesting it.  We discuss everything one might expect and we just had an incredibly fun time doing it!

We hope you enjoy this first entry into our Halloween until Thanksgiving A-thon!

This is a very very strange film.  Ghost Fever was originally released on March 27,1987 but since IMDB states the film is from 1986 that’s what I’ll rolling with! Ghost Fever is a low budget film mostly financed by Sherman Hemsley and nearly bankrupted him!  Although I am unsure who the target audience was, I think it’s worth watching just to see how crazy a mid 80’s film can be.

Geno Cuddy returns to the mic to help be dissect this strange classic!

“Two policeman are sent on a routine assignment to serve an eviction notice. It becomes anything but run-of-the-mill when they become involved in the ghostly happenings.”

Rushing this one out!  Chris and Mark watched and discussed the CBS 1981-82 Happy New Year America hosted by Donny Osmond and Donna mills!!!!  The Pointer Sisters also spend some time on stage live from Las Vegas!  There’s so much in this 2 hour presentation and I hope you guys enjoy it!

Happy New Year to all of you from VHS Rewind! and RetroTV!

VHS Rewind! wants to leave one more lump of coal under your tree this holiday season…to celebrate Christmas in 2020, VHS Rewind is taking a look at a true holiday classic SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984).

Nothing says “Christmas 2020” more than a movie filled with gratuitous nudity, the torture of children by sadistic Catholic nuns, lots of shag carpeting and wood paneling, mommy being raped by Santa in front of the kids, no less than two Santas being shot dead in front of orphaned children…and toys, lots of great toys in the background of certain scenes. VHS Rewind! hopes that you will sit around the Christmas tree, with egg nog in one hand and an axe in the other and listen to this very special holiday treat. Merry Xmas, and God Bless us, everyone.

“…with a heart full of wishes, tied up with ribbons of love, this gift that I give may seem small, but I’d like to wrap up a dream for you all…”

Ho! Ho! Ho! and a bottle of (hot buttered) rum…VHS Rewind!’s resident disc jockey, Christopher Hasler, has prepared his annual batch of Christmas hooch!

With this episode, VHS Rewind! is gifting listeners with some Christmas cheer and laughter (even if, as we are reminded during this episode, Elvis Wont Be Here for Christmas)

…and after the year that we have all gone through, who doesn’t want some Christmas cheer and laughter?  (even if Elvis Wont Be Here for Christmas)

Let DJ Christopher be your Santa Claus as he presents a veritable Yule Log (although, at only approx. 90 minutes, perhaps just a Yule Ember? But it burns no less brightly) chock full of Christmas music, Christmas editorials, Christmas comedy, Christmas tears, letters to Santa, and very special holiday wishes to you from a cavalcade of guest stars (we are not telling you who – you have to unwrap this episode by listening to find out although we will say this about one such guest star: only Lou Reed can wish everyone a Happy Holidays and make it sound like something off his BERLIN LP). In addition, it always seems like the New Years holiday plays second fiddle to the Christmas holidays and is otherwise generally forgotten (New Years is to Christmas what Joe Besser is to Moe and Larry; or, wait, wait, maybe New Years is to Christmas what Candy Candido is to Bud Abbott) so we wanted to rectify that and include some festive New Years holiday songs too.

And speaking of the New Year, VHS Rewind! wants to wish all of our listeners and FB members a very Happy, Merry & Wilbury-est Holidays and, to paraphrase the honorable Colonel Sherman T. Potter:

Here’s to the New Year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may this COVID crisis all be over soon.

Mark is joined by Chris Hasler and Leah Mitchell as we combine RetroTV and VHS Rewind!’s forces to bring you our annual review of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, this time from 1983!

Some of the highlights of the parade are

Feel free to watch it yourself right here!

Its Halloween-time once again and while trick-or-treating may not be happening in some parts of the country (although it is alive and well here on Long island!), VHS Rewind Is still gonna bring you some Halloween-inspired musical treats with the Annual Halloween Music Episode…all kinds of creepy, crawling, ghostly tunes await those who dare listen: psychotic country music, possessed disco music; scary rock ‘n roll; screamin’ rockabilly; devilish reggae…take a tour through this year’s Halloween haunted mansion and have yourself some spooky fun..

Mark and Chris get together to review this extremely underrated film from 1986. Matthew Labyorteaux who is best know from Little House on the Prairie and the 80’s hacker action show, Whiz Kids. Matthew plays Paul Conway who  has a best friend who is a robot….yeah. Having a robot buddy may seem cute but after his friend is killed by her abusive father, Albert…I mean Paul attempts to save her by implanting robotic microchips into her brain…..yeah.

Who else is in the nearly forgotten film? How about Anne Ramsey who plays the shotgun wielding neighbor and is easily the same character she portrayed in Throw Mama From the Train. We also have a very young Kristy Swanson who looks lovely until…she’s ya know….dead.

I hope you guys enjoy this and for my Walnut GroveCast listeners I even added a tiny bit of fun at the very end.

I don’t think it will come to many as much of a surprise for my fondness for the tv show, Whiz Kids which originally aired for a very brief 8 months from October 5, 1983 to June 2, 1984. In those 8 months, 18 episodes aired and I loved the show, I loved it so much that even recorded many of the episodes on a now lost BetaMax collection of tapes.

When Whiz Kids first aired I was 10, was really into the BASIC programming language, creating my own games, learning about BBS systems using my 300 baud modem for my Commodore 64. I quickly outgrew the Commodore and received an IBM PC which I would use for many years. I owned (and still do) many computers, Apple II, Apple IIC, Apple IIGS, TRS-80, Commodore 128, Atari 400 and 800, etc etc – right now I am writing this on a Windows 10 machine powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 processor with 32gb of RAM, Navi RX 5000 video card, liquid cooling and many other little amazing things that allow me to edit all of my podcasts, video and anything else needed.  Why am I going off on this tangent? Well, because I have been interested in computers since I was in 2nd grade, Whiz Kids came around at a time when I wanted to learn more about what a computer could do and the show absolutely fed my dopey head with fun ideas.  I will always appreciate Whiz Kids and Matthew Labyorteaux’s role as Richie Adler. My goal in life at 10 was to own a RALF computer which was a Frankenstein-type of monstrosity with an IMSAI PCS 80/30 computer at the heart but what I really wanted was all those cool blinking lights. I think the desire to own such a complicated machine birthed my love of vintage modular HIFI stereo equipment, recording devices from 1960’s and 70’s, my collection of vintage synthesizers, guitars, amps and a lot more that my wife will one day try to get me to part with. I only hope I can convince my son to fall in love with these items so they don’t end up in a garage sale (my 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom for $65 is a fear).

Today, my recording setup is not unlike RALF, I use a Mackie digital mixer, Focusrite Scarlett audio interface, Shure SM7B microphone – I have XLR cables routed everywhere and other wires aplenty and I would never have it any other way! When I fire up my recording computer and get on the line with Chris, Kim, Leah or one of the many people who take the time to discuss all of these wonderful shows with me, I feel RALF is alive in my setup, I might not have the Intel 8080 processor from the IMSAI powering my Mac but deep within the Intel i7’s multi-cores is the power behind RALF.

I am now officially rambling so I am just going to conclude with this, Whiz Kids left an impression on me and was very important to my development and perhaps it even taught me to WANT things! I will always cherish this light-hearted crime drama about nerdy hackers in southern California. It’s a sweet and worthwhile show.