Video Revival

[davidn]

Throughout the 80s, my parents used to tape a heap of daytime schools and children's programmes for me, and this resulted in a mountain of VHS tapes that had been sitting largely forgotten at the back of the video cupboard for a couple of decades. It's also a habit that somehow spread to me, as I then continued taping virtually everything I or any of my siblings happened to watch in the 90s and storing it away with the rest of the repository. A few weeks ago, my parents decided to do something about them before they were lost forever, so they got a VHS to DVD convertor and started rescuing them. And among the things that my parents brought with them to Boston last week were four DVDs, the result of their digging efforts so far.

After receiving those I've started on my half of the plan, packaging the DVD videos up neatly into episodes and releasing them to roam free on the Internet so that they can be viewed again. I've set up a Youtube account for this by the name of http://uk.youtube.com/user/TributeToThePast (named because there are at least a couple of people on my Friends list who would have called it a huge missed opportunity if I hadn't) and have put up a few of the rarer ones - these amount to a few episodes of Video Maths (a once hi-tech maths programme aided by the BBC Micro), Chockablock, The Flumps and the UK attempt at turning Cluedo into a panel quiz, complete with Richard Wilson as the Reverend Green. As more videos are converted I hope to keep putting the really unique stuff up there.

I skipped through the four DVDs so far and noted down names of programmes and episode titles as they went past - there isn't anything totally earth-shattering here from my point of view, but there are definitely a couple of things that Youtube doesn't have (Bertha, Pigeon Street and the Rainbow pantomime will probably be next on my list). The contents seem to be split across 80s British and 90s American programmes on each one - I would have expected the tapes to have either one or the other without mixing them as much, but I don't know the process involved in getting them into this state in the first place.

If there's anything that you'd particularly like to see again, mention it in the comments and I'll put it up for you. (I, personally, can't wait for Wondermaths to turn up and for me to prove that it did exist and I'm not just making a sci-fi/maths serial up.)

Now that I look at it, these might also be quite telling indicators of what turned me into the... fine, upstanding citizen that I am today.

	A	B	C	D
1
2	DVD Name	Title	Contents	Uploaded
3
4	Video Maths/WP	1	1 Video Maths - Movement	O
5		2	2 Maths Is Fun - Windmill
6		3	3 Rainbow - Washing Line
7		4	4 Words and Pictures - Frog and Toad, list
8		5	5 Video Maths - Shadows	O
9		6	6 Maths is Fun - Coins
10		7	7 Words and Pictures - Frog and Toad, grasshopper
11		8	8 Rainbow - Jungle
12		9	9 Maths is Fun - Shapes
13		10	10 Words and Pictures - Jungle, egg
14		11	11 Video Maths - Counting	O
15		12	12 Rolf's Cartoon Club - Chili Weather
16		13	13 Tom and Jerry - Pool
17		14	14 Woody Woodpecker - Clocks
18
19	Cluedo	1	Cluedo	O
20		2	Words and Pictures - Crickets
21		3	(continued)
22		4	Music Time - Melody
23		5	Primary Sciences - Forces 1 - The Experimenter	.
24		6	Space Ark - Forces	.
25		7	Maid Marian - Raining Forks
26		8	Speed Racer - The Creature from the Sombra Lagoon
27		9	Zzzap! - Car wash
28		10	Sonic - Coachnik	X
29		11	Watt on Earth - Part Six	O
30		12	Maid Marian - The Wise Woman of Worksop
31		13	Speed Racer - Trouble in Deep Twelve
32		14	Sonic - Full Tilt Tails
33		15	Speed Racer - The Mach-5 is Missing
34		16	Maid Marian - The Nice Sumatran
35		17	Speed Racer - Race to the Future
36		18	(Half of) Reboot - ??	X
37
38	90s Cartoons	1	Words and Pictures - Winter?
39		2	Rainbow - Pantomime	.
40		3	Hugh Harman cartoon - Goldilocks
41		4	Pigeon Street - Pigeon at Sea (Half)	.
42		5	Hokey Cokey - Snow
43		6	Pigeon Street - Can I have my ball back?	O
44		7	The Flumps - Secrets	O
45		8	Pigeon Street - Noisy neighbours
46		9	Chockablock - Crow	O
47		10	The Flumps - The Cloud	O
48		11	Pro Stars - The Final Cut
49		12	Spacecats - (That one in South America)
50		13	Sonic (14min)
51			Satam (Half)
52		14	Iron Man - Data In Chaos Out
53			The Incredible Hulk
54		15	Fantastic Four - Origin Part 2
55			Iron Man - Silence My Companion, Death My Destination (The one with the piano)
56			The Incredible Hulk -
57			Fantastic Four - The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus Part 1
58		16	Satam - Blast to the Past Part 2
59		17	Iron Man - Iron Man to the Second Power Part 2
60			Fantastic Four - The Mask of Doom Part 2
61		18	Bertha	O
62		19	Words and Pictures - Spiders
63
64	EP	1	Tom and Jerry - Professor Tom, Mouse Cleaning, Polka Dot Puss
65		2	The Witches
66		3	Tom and Jerry - Little School Mouse, Baby Butch, Mice Follies
67		4	Knightmare	X
68			Tom and Jerry - Tennis Chumps
69			Tom and Jerry - Touche Pussy Cat
70			Tom and Jerry - Heavenly Puss
71			Look and Read - Badger Girl 8 - Finding the Ponies	.
72			Words and Pictures - That series with the Scouse man - Western
73			Hart Beat
74		5	(End of) Hart Beat
75			Bugs Bunny - A Lad In His Lamp
76			Porky Pig - Porky the Giant Killer
77			Rolf's Cartoon Club - Christmas
78			Tom and Jerry - Opera
79		6	Knightmare - End of series 2 (part)	X
80		7	(You and Me) Rainbow - Cats
81		8	Music Time - Seagull
82		9	Let's Go Maths - Sunflower
83		10	Hokey Cokey
84		11	Postman Pat
85		12	Words and Pictures - Three Little Pigs
86		13	Music Time - Grouping Beats
87		14	Let's Go Maths - Mirror
88		15	Hokey Cokey - Mog in space
89		16	Words and Pictures - Whistle
90		17	Let's Go Maths - Dragons
91		18	Storytime - Magnets, recycling	.
92

Comments

[ethelfleda.livejournal.com]

You, sir, are an archival master!

I was watching Chockablock, and initially I thought that I'd never seen it before, but slowly familiarity dawned - I know that wee truck! And the blocks! I must have watched it but almost completely forgotten it.

Also - must upload ALL POSSIBLE MAID MARION. Yes. Please.

[silvertarna.livejournal.com]

I SECOND MAID MARION OMG!

[davidn]

See my reply to ethelfleda - I hate to dodge a very first request, but there are better ways of getting them than through the couple of episodes I have here!

[davidn]

I actually have access to the complete Maid Marian series through a UK torrent site I'm part of - if you like, I can either arrange for a friend with a heap of invites to give you one of them, or somehow send them to you otherwise - I'd prefer not to put them on Youtube because they have fairly recent DVD releases and I feel there's a higher chance of getting nicked for them!

It was amazing, though. Truly Blackadder for children. Actually, that reminds me that "Storytime" at the very end of the list has Tony Robinson even younger than that.

[gr33bo.livejournal.com]

I shall worship you as though you were a god!!!

Oh my god - I had the same reaction as ethelfleda to Chocablock - totally didn't remember it until that car....

More MOREE!!!!!

[davidn]

Well, I can tell you're pleased :) But the real worship should go to my parents! For working out how to use any bit of technology newer than an Amstrad, as much as rescuing these things.

I've put a couple of new ones up this evening - Bertha and Pigeon Street (the process is slightly long-winded and slow, involving ripping the DVD titles individually, converting them to MP4, then putting them in iMovie and splitting them) - I'm also going to do Watt On Earth and The Experimenter soon even though they're rather newer, because there don't appear to be any trace of either on Youtube and no mention of the latter on the Internet, anywhere.

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

This Cluedo show is a really nice concept.

Speaking of which why isn't it called Clue there

[davidn]

A more appropriate question, from my point of view at least, is why America dropped the -do suffix! Though I can't explain why it was invented with that name either.

I think Australia also had a series of the same name (there are bits of it on Youtube) - the UK one had four series with completely different actors each time, but I only remembered it very vaguely until it turned up on one of these DVDs.

[lordrosemount.livejournal.com]

'Cluedo' was originally named as a pun on 'Ludo', a fairly bland board game using the same kind of counters (the ones that look like Hershey's Kisses). I gather it wasn't widely known in the US, so the word play would have been meaningless.

[davidn]

Well, there it is! Thank you - to think I went through 23 years of life not seeing the connection.

[lordrosemount.livejournal.com]

I live to serve. :)

[lordrosemount.livejournal.com]

You have Cluedo? Excellent! A couple of years ago I started buying up old tapes and DVDs of the show from Ebay, but I don't have a VHS player any more and my series 2 DVD has stopped working, so the only working series I have at the moment is the first. Richard Wilson was certainly the best Rev. Jonathan Green, but contrary to many opinions I also really liked Kristoffer Tabori as Prof. Peter Plum in the first series - he was young, American and rich, so not the typical mad professor character, but he was hilarious in the studio, loudly remonstrating every time anyone suggested he had anything to do with the murder (especially during the episode when he did!). He went on to play the assassin droid in the Knights of the Old Republic computer games, another star performance.

[pami-zee.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad that our parents finally listened to my pleas to get a VHS to DVD recorder. Just jealous now that I can't be at home to use it, it looks really fun!

Can we rearrange the DVDs once they're done into series do you think? It would be nice to have they properly organised at last.

I'm going home in a few weekends - if your videos of Knightmare are there I could try and get them made into DVDs asap so that they're organised :)

Can't wait for Speed Racer, Bertha, Iron Man and Fantastic 4!

[davidn]

I had no idea you were behind the idea at first - well done!

The description of how the whole thing works has been very vague, but it seems that programmes are recorded onto an internal hard drive before you then produce DVDs out of them, so I imagine that they can be rearranged. I wouldn't put too much priority on the Knightmare videos, though, because I actually have the entirety of it downloaded here - I could send you the files should you want them!

If there's one thing you can do if it hasn't been done already when you go home, I have several people who are very excited about seeing The Crystal Maze again...

[pami-zee.livejournal.com]

I'll see what I can find :) Hopefully there will be a few labelled videos...!

[lordrosemount.livejournal.com]

Here's a request for you: ad breaks! I noticed a couple in the Cluedo video, but it's always fascinating to look at adverts from a bygone (if not by much) era, because they tell us so much about what the world was like back then.

[davidn]

Yes, I threw them in for the same reason - although I think that we deliberately cut the adverts out of most of the videos when they were first recorded, not anticipating their value much later on! I will leave them in, or post them separately, if I encounter any more, though.