The wife and I have recently been culling through our collections of various things, trying to free up some room and make our place look a little bit neater. In the quest to let go I came across what’s left of my meager collection of VHS tapes, movies that haven’t been released on DVD (or at least hadn’t when I choose to keep them) and I just can’t seem to part with. Throughout the 90s and in to the 2000s I had amassed a ton of VHS tapes while working at a local grocery store. I was a night manager in the drug/gm department which was over our in-store video rental kiosk, and because I was a burgeoning movie freak I always got first dibs on previously-viewed sales stock.
When DVD came along I started the laborious and expensive process of replacing my collection, and to help bolster that project I sold off most of my tapes on eBay when you could still get a decent amount for them. Even so, there were a few tapes that I decided to hang onto because I figured they’d never get released on DVD. It’s been fun over time as some of these titles have become available and I’ve been able to throw away a tape here and there (like my two Tick cartoon videos, MTV’s the Maxx series, Buckaroo Banzai, Goonies, and my Thundercats and Transformers the Movie convention bootlegs.) Well, the collection had shrunk to about ten tapes, a few of which were gifts (I have a hard time parting with gifts), and a couple more which I just hadn’t thrown away yet (I finally bought a copy of the Die Hard DVD last year.) I thought it would be fun to share some of the straglers…
First up we have the 1988 anti-classic Hot to Trot starring Bobcat Goldthwait, Dabney Coleman, Virginia Madsen and the voice of John Candy as Don the talking horse. I loved, loved, loved this flick as a kid (it probably didn’t hurt that Nick at Night was coming into it’s own at the time and I was getting introduced to a massive amount of Mr. Ed re-runs.) First off you have Goldthwait who was becoming my favorite stand-up comedian with his coke-induced sweaty, garble-mouthed HBO specials and his role as the unpredictable and loving Stork brother Egg in One Crazy Summer, not to mention his really fun turn as Zed in the Police Academy movies and his suicidal turn as Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged. I think this is sort of the high point of his career as the goofy funny guy with one of his only starring roles. In a few more years we get the sort of straightened out and much more seriously crazy Goldthwait with Shakes the Clown and his firebug antics.
At the same time I sort of felt that Coleman was reprising his 9 to 5 horrible boss character, which was a role that I loved him in. He could also sort of do-no-wrong for me after playing dual roles in Clock and Dagger alongside Henry Thomas. If there’s one thing this film is really notable for, it probably as the beginning of the end of John Candy’s career. There were a few promising moments here and there (Uncle Buck, and I actually enjoyed the Delirious flick), but for all intents and purposes it was all downhill after Hot to Trot. It’s kind of sad…
Debuting the next year (’89) was the insane comedy Big Man on Campus…
…which featured an early performance from the Office’s Melora Hardin, as well as Corey Parker (best friend and one-time step son of Patrick Dempsey), Cindy “Shirley” Williams, and Tom Skerritt. The star of the flick was an unlikely Allan Katz playing the hunchback Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga (“One Malooga, four looga’s…”) Katz was the writer/producer on shows like M*A*S*H, Rhoda, Roseanne and Blossom, and his one big film was Big Man on Campus which to this day I content is utter comedy genius. The film is silly re-telling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame set in present day California on the UCLA campus with Bob living in a click tower and fawning over Hardin’s Cathy from afar. When he sees Cathy in trouble while she’s defending her boyfriend (played with amazing comic-timing precision by Parker), Bob swoops down to protect her, outing himself in the process. At first considered violent, the university decides to study Bob, appointing Parker as his keeper/roommate, and it’s from here that the film really takes a weird turn.
Though it could have stayed pretty much to the obvious stock story, Katz imbues the flick with some much comedic life in all of the zany little details. There’s all sort of left-field one-liners in the film that I still find myself uttering to this day. At one point in a mall Bob is asked what he wants from a fried chicken stand (legs, breasts, thighs, you know where the joke is going), but instead of making it overtly sexual and hum drum, he asks for “…two faces.” On top of the well written script, Katz brings an amazing physicality to the character that’s half John Belushi, and half Harold Lloyd. I’d plotz if the flick ever came out on DVD…
Next up we have an obscure Billy Dee Williams flick from 1995 called Secret Agent 00 Soul…
The flick is excruciatingly bad and it must have been a favor to a family member that got Billy Dee to star in this. I haven’t even managed to make it all the way through the film, and honestly I don’t think I ever will. My favorite character from the Star Wars flicks has always been Lando, and that’s more or less why I’ve been hanging on to this tape (it was a gag gift from a friend.) My favorite aspect is the post-production design work on the promo materials. Look at that cover! Have you seen a worse photo-enhancement job in your life (that is Billy Dee’s head, but it ain’t his body.) Oh wait, there is a worse job than the cover. Take a gander at that back cover…
Yup, Billy Dee’s head pasted onto a white man’s body (doing a bad impression of Roger Moore from the flick For Your Eyes Only, though it might even be Moore’s body.) Classic. If you ever find a copy of the flick, look for an early guest star appearance by Tiny Lister Jr.
Last up is a film that has actually come out on DVD, but it’s a tape that’s been so loved over the years it’s impossible for me to get rid of it, the one and only Monster Squad!
This tape has been watched and rewound at least two hundred times (personally) not to mention all of the viewings it had at the video store where I picked it up. I just can’t get rid of it. I even have a swanky bootleg cover that matches this original cover for my official DVD release (since I hate the new cover artwork so much.) I think I’d get buried with this VHS (if I were planning to be buried that is.) By the by, does anyone know who the poster artist is for the Monster Squad? The art on the cover is signed Craig, which looks like a familiar signature, but I’m not sure who it is…
