And hellooooooo, everybody! Time to go back down again to the VIDEO STREET VIDEO STORE — return some old tapes, check out some new ones. For the newbies — or, just as a reminder — this is a weekly anthology of all the random awesomeness that is our analog tradition. Enjoy, and if something moves you to, please leave a comment — or suggest a video for future shows!
Here’s what’s up this week…
VIDEO #1 📼 “John Stossel Gets the Open-Hand Slap”
After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last week, and the outpouring of conspiratorial gossip that followed, I thought it’d be a good idea to revisit this notorious 20/20 segment from 1984. Here, wrestler Dr. David Schultz assures correspondent John Stossel — and the skeptical public at large — that there is no fakery in “professional” wrestling, demonstrating his truth by open-hand slapping Stossel across the face so hard that the reporter falls to the floor.
Of course, it’s not that Shultz was proving himself; he was just tired of weenie elitists asking him the “standard” question, and he just lost his temper.
Most of this segment focuses on demonstrations of wrestling stunts by Shultz’s former wrestling partner Eddie Mansfield. Mansfield, who had recently been blackballed by Vince McMahon and the WWF, shows Stossel a number of the tried-and-trued wrestling moves of the stars, and pretty much exposes the sport, which was having a golden age in 1984, as a high-end stunt show. One notable move Mansfield reveals is the concealed razorblade technique, the old trick that many conspiracy theorists believe Trump, 2013 WWE Hall of Fame Inductee, pulled last week when he held his hand up to his nicked ear and brought back a gushing amount of blood. Whether or not Trump actually incited this “secret” wrestling trick, he certainly proved that the old wrestling promoter’s mantra that “red turns to green” is as true now as it was back in ‘84. I mean, how much money did he raise last week?
(Side note: While Stossel did, as he does now, have a very slap-able face, I do not condone violence in any form!)
VIDEO #2 📼 “Fast Times at the Fantastic Food Factory”
As Barry Levinson’s Diner (1982), Tin Men (1987) and pretty much any sitcom post-Happy Days and Alice will have you believe, the diner is a primo-American institution, a home base where we meet, eat, and scheme before going out into the chaotic world. Still, the goings-on behind-the-scenes of the typical American diner are rarely documented — unless you count all those Food Network shows where the hungry hipster storms through the kitchen like Kong and demands they feed him!
In any case, I’ve been a fan of this short doc about the Fantastic Food Factory since I first saw it some 15 years ago. Because it’s made by amateur college students, it’s pretty rough and bare bones, but there’s also a charm factor here — a slice of late 70s Bostonian-life. The filmmakers, three college students at Boston U., are clearly fans of Direct Cinema, and therefore scrap any narrative devices that provide context. So it’s not clear why they were drawn to document the Triple-F for their senior thesis. But I have to think there were probably two main reasons:
One. The wacky restauranteur stylings of David Greenstein, sort of a cross between an Old Towne soda fountain jerk and late night radio DJ, with the look and personality of Gene Shalit after he’s had too much ice cream.
…and Two. The all-together normalcy of the diner, with a standard greasy spoon menu of burgers and sweets, but with the odd gimmick of porno on the side. As Greenstein proudly proclaims, “This is the only ice cream shop in town where you can get Penthouse, Hustler, and Gallery, and good food at the same time!”
VIDEO #3 📼 “Can’t Stop the Madness”
And finally, on the last episode of the VSVS, I featured a stalwart of the 80s video variety — a Satanic Panic short, one that was pure exploitation masked as “information,” chock-full of graphic images, bogus statistics, and a lot of finger-pointing in the wrong direction. This week, I give you another brother from the same video-mother, the anti-drug PSA — that bastard stepchild of 80s neo-McCarthyism that emerged from the Reagan White House, thanks to first lady Nancy, who appears (briefly) at the end of “Stop the Madness”, bopping and dipping to the hip beat. (After Kid Rock performed at last week’s RNC, it’s fun to see that whitie Republicans can still get down after all these years!)
Just like the Satanic Panic trend, this video and its endless spawn misinformed and misdirected, placing the blame on the black and ethnic street-pushers who sold the drugs rather on those who were supplying them in the first place. Of course, as we now know — and have known for a long-time — the drugs filtering into the U.S. since the mid-60s were made possible by the U.S.’s laissez-faire foreign policy toward drug-rich countries fighting communism.
You’ve probably seen “Stop the Madness” before, but, if you’re like me, every time you go back to it you notice something new. This time watching it, for instance, I noticed that the teenage girl who buys drugs off the leisure-suit Larry living in her closet is none other than Claudia Wells, Marty’s girlfriend from Back to the Future. Also, Stacy Keech, who would be busted for cocaine possession shortly after filming his celebrity cameo in “Stop the Madness,” does a Hollywood first — community service before you actually commit a crime.
Well, that’s it for this week’s VIDEO STREET VIDEO STORE! Again, be sure to, ya know…
A new episode of the VSVS drops every Wednesday throughout the summer, and, of course, be sure to check out THE MIDNIGHT CITIZEN, your late night broadcast from Birmingham, AL, hosted by me, Mike Boody, every Saturday night. Keep your eyes open!
VIDEO STREET VIDEO STORE 📼 Episode 9