Tag: VHS Tapes

Friday Photo Flashback

Its time for another edition of my Friday Photo Flashback. I stumbled upon a photo that brought back many memories making me happy and sad at the same time. Take a peak:

If I was going to put a date on this, it is probably around 1996 or 1997. It looks like it was taken at a home I lived in with my then girlfriend and future ex. It is a terrible picture of me, as I am obviously caught by surprise here. I still have hair and am still wearing glasses. I’m also sporting one of the T-shirts I had made for my DJ business. But it is not me (or the big honking computer monitor) that catches my attention – it is the stuff I can see in the background.

A lot of it I can make out just by looking at it. However, I viewed it by zooming in and a lot caught my attention. The bookshelves alone are full of fantastic memories! The book shelf on the left side of the picture holds a boat load of VHS tapes. On the top shelf I can make out some Soupy Sales Show videos and some videos we must have recorded off TV (hand made lables). On the shelf below that I can make out the VHS tapes of the Three Stooges shorts, Jack Webb’s Dragnet movie, and the Jack Palance version of Dracula. Each shelf would hold two rows of VHS tapes. So I can only see the front rows of what is on the shelf. It seems like the third shelf down is also holding video tapes, but the three hole punch on top of the computer monitor is blocking it.

This photo is obviously taken after 1994. That is when Honey Radio went off the air. Honey stuff is all over this room! Right above the three hole punch, you can make out a black and gold Honey Radio coffee mug. On the top shelf of the right book case, I can see the the Billboard Top 100 Chart book and Pop Singles book. These were part of the Honey on air studio. Behind me on the wall is a chalk caricature that was drawn of me while I was out doing a remote broadcast. I LOVED that thing, and it is long gone now. (This may be the only photographic evidence of it). Next to that is a wooden sign with the Honey Logo on it. Below that sign are two frames. One contains one of the last Honey Happenings newsletters (which has my picture in it) and the other is a shot of me and my old morning show partner.

On the wall behind me in the photo is a beautiful framed photo of the Three Stooges. I received that for Christmas one year from my parents. Under that is the top of a Blues Brothers concert poster. At one point, I used that when my partner Steve and I would don our Blues Brothers hats when we DJ’d. And right below that are the Three Stooges dolls I wrote about in a previous Friday Photo Flashback. You can see the tag on the Curly just behind my ear.

Heading back to the bookshelves. The bookshelf on the right has SO many books that I wish I still had. There is a book on Bugs Bunny, a book on World War II that I had given my grandpa, a few books with Three Stooges scripts, an amazing biography on Curly, and the wonderful Ted Sennett book on the Art of Hanna Barbera.

On the second shelf, I can make out the Milton Berle Joke books I used when I was on the radio, biographies on Stan Freberg and Jackie Gleason, and books I had forgotten about. One example of this is when Thomas Chastain offered up a new Perry Mason novel –

Another example is the books by William Harrington series with Columbo as the star –

The next shelf contains books about movies and TV shows. I had books on Get Smart, Batman, Perry Mason, The Munsters, and more. The coolest of the TV show books were two with trivia and scripts from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

There are other little trinkets and treasures on the shelves I can see, but the ones on the top of the book cases are ones I wish I still had. I can see my prom glasses up there (yes, they gave high school kids in 1988 wine glasses!), I had two because I went to prom with a gal in my junior year and then my senior prom.

On the left, you can see the boxes that contained limited edition Blues Brothers dolls. I had both Jake and Elwood.

Also on the top of the shelf are Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton figures – limited editions, as well.

I had no idea there was an Alice figure that went with those two until I was searching for pictures.

Finding the photo with all of these memories was such a treat to me. I am sad to remember so many great books and things that are no longer in my possession, but the memories of them remain.

“I wish I still had …” (Episode 1)

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This may (or may not) be the first of a series of blogs.  The idea came to me as I was looking through my blogging notebook this evening.  My notebook contains various scribbles and thoughts that I think may be worthy of a blog.  Sometimes these come from writing prompts, sometimes a fellow blogger’s blog can spawn an idea, and sometimes they come from random memories.

The premise of this idea is a simple one:  “I wish I still had (fill in the blank).”  The reason I think this could be a series is that I think there are a lot of things that could fill the “blank”.  I am sure that you could do the same.  As you read the statement, you probably had an item that immediately came to mind!  Here is my first “blank”…

1988

Back in the late 80’s there was a store at Eastland Mall called Suncoast Motion Picture Company.  I used to visit it all the time!  They had all kinds of music, movies, and memorabilia.  This was back when you could buy movies on VHS and BETA tapes!  I could spend hours in there.  I would compare it to an FYE or Barnes and Nobel.  They always had movie and TV themed shirts (much like what you would find a Spencer Gifts), books about movies, and other entertainment oriented items.

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It was at Suncoast, that I purchased the first of many Three Stooges VHS tapes.  Up to this point, if I wanted to watch the Stooges, I had to stay up until midnight to catch them on Channel 50, or rent them on the 8mm film projector from the public library.  You could video tape them from the TV, but many times they played commercials in between shorts.  With the ones I bought from Suncoast, I could watch them unedited and uninterrupted!

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One of the things that Suncoast had were these Three Stooges collectible dolls that were made by Hamilton Gifts.  The detail of the faces was just amazing!  I don’t recall how much they cost, but I remember asking for them for Christmas that year.  I remember that year, my parents got me the Moe doll.  If memory serves me correctly, my aunt got me the Curly doll.  I went and bought the Larry doll with my own money.  They stood proudly on the shelf in my bedroom for years.  When I moved out, they stood on a bookshelf in my apartment.  They were always out on display.

When I got married the first time, they were still on display in the “entertainment room” which is where I kept my many books, videos, and our computer.  Eventually, I was told to “find a place for them” outside of the house.  I had a couple radio jobs which allowed me to display them in my office.  Eventually, after losing another radio job, they came back home with me, where I was forbidden to put them on display.

Eventually, I was told by my ex that we were having a garage sale.  I was to go through my stuff and we were selling it.  Some things I didn’t mind parting with – the VHS movies I had on DVD were an easy purge.  Little by little, she kept pulling stuff out that she wanted gone.  There were things that I ended up selling that I truly regret (my first DJ rig, for example).

As the day for the garage sale drew closer, things kept getting added to the “sell” pile. When I saw my Stooge dolls on there, I blew up!  I was NOT going to sell them.  She insisted that I was!  It became the classic “they go or I go” argument.  In her magical and totally narcissistic way, she used her power of manipulation to explain I didn’t need them.  By selling them, “we’d have money to pay bills and get ahead”.  The sentimental value didn’t matter to her.  I would say that 75% of the stuff sold at the garage sale was mine.

I remember the person who bought them.  I purposely priced them high in hopes that they wouldn’t sell.  The woman dickered with me on the price and talked about how her grandson loved the Stooges and so on and so forth, which made it a little easier to let them go.  I can still remember that gut feeling when she walked out with them.  Instant regret!

Fill in the blank – I wish I still had those Three Stooges Dolls.

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I know what you are thinking – they are dolls!  What the hell would I do with them today?!  I don’t know.  I really don’t even know where I would display them.  All I know is that they meant a lot to me, and I wish I still had them – for sentimental reasons.

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