Here we go again with another bigger, longer cut of THE VIDEO STREET VIDEO STORE! Keep in mind that the VSVS is a regular feature on THE MIDNIGHT CITIZEN podcast — some videos I play in the middle of my live show so I can take a break and, hopefully, surprise you with a deep dive into the analog weirdness of our shared cultural chaos. For all future episodes, as well as The Midnight Citizen, your late-night broadcast from Birmingham, AL, be sure to, ya know…
A new show drops every Saturday night. Check out the latest one here!
Now onto business!
VIDEO 1: Sean Young has a meltdown in a catsuit on the Joan Rivers Show
This is perhaps one of the most devastating, tragic, and, sure, compulsively watchable public meltdowns a celebrity has ever had. Next to Sean Young strutting around in her Dollar Store Julie Newmar catsuit for an uncaring daytime TV audience, Tom Cruise looks positively scholarly in his 2005 psychiatry debate with Matt Lauer.
Check out the full cat-shit crazy interview:
In the summer of 1991, after the announcement came down the pike that the role every leading lady in Hollywood craved — Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) — went to Michelle Phifer, one actress decided not to take it lying down. Of course, you couldn’t really blame Sean Young. After being cast as Vicki Vale in Batman (1989), Young was unceremoniously let go from the production after she fell off a horse during rehearsal. The Blade Runner actress was replaced by Kim Basinger, and, to add insult to her compound-fracture injury, the scene she was rehearsing for was later cut. Actually, it was never filmed at all.
Young never heard from director Tim Burton, but a couple of years later, when he announced he’d be returning to helm the Batman sequel, she assumed that Burton would at least do her the favor of letting her audition for Selena Kyle/Catwoman. Of course, she was wrong. And not only did Burton not let her audition, but he allegedly hired special “Sean Young” security and hid under a desk when she showed up unannounced on the Warner Bros. lot to request another chance. A far-cry from pushing her Max Schrek-style out a window.
After Young was escorted off the lot, she decided to get her revenge by going on the short-lived daytime TV show (and you can see why it was so short-lived from Rivers’ lame, pseudo-topical opening monologue jokes), and badmouth Burton, producer Mark Canton, and even Phifer to an audience of what must have been, at least, hundreds.
What’s interesting about this piece of tape is that between bouts of fake crying and ranting into the camera like it was Tim Burton, Young actually dishes out some fascinating insights about the Hollywood machine, art vs. commerce, and the systematic dehumanization of women in the film business. These are certainly things we’re well-aware of in the post-Weinstein era, but, in 1991, were still far from the public’s consciousness or concern.
Sadly, Young failed to recognize that in Hollywood, you don’t have nine lives to spend. She went onto star in the lame Dr. Jeckyl and Miss Hyde before disappearing from the business altogether. Meanwhile, Kim Basinger would win an Oscar years later for LA Confidential.
VIDEO 2: “Sweetening” Sitcoms of the 1980s
While laugh tracks have pretty much disappeared from the few remaining sitcoms of today, this tape takes us back to when not only were they commonplace, but one man — audio engineer Carroll Pratt — pretty much held the monopoly on making them happen. It’s crazy to me that back in the 80s, it was the industry standard to not only “fool” the home television audience into thinking the junk they were watching was actually getting laughs from real people, but that the laugh sweeteners like Pratt and the producers he worked for were so proudly transparent about all of it. I guess they justify the fraud a little bit in this video when they say they’re only taking “real” laughs from the Webster studio audience and just sprucing them up a little. Well, yeaaaaah, but then, the “unsweetened” Webster sample they show of Emmanuel Lewis sneaking a bowl of ice cream doesn’t have any laughs to begin with. Not even snickers. They’re literally stuffing the scene with laughs to make gullible audiences of the 1980s think that what they’re watching is a riot!
Seriously, everyone knew this was going on. Woody Allen even poked fun of it years before this news piece. Remember Annie Hall (1977), when his alter-ego Alvy Singer watches Tony Robbins sweeten a scene in editing? Amazingly, even though everybody knew of this ethical gray area, nobody seemed to care. So you can’t really blame folks like Carroll Pratt for making a quick buck off folks’ apathy for their entertainment standards.
By the way: The podcast “Decoder Ring” recently did a whole show about laugh track fetishists. It’s pretty interesting. Check it out.
VIDEO 3: Bob Crane’s Last Interview
Radio DJ and Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane had a real rough go of it in the 70s. His crippling sex addiction had tanked his film and TV acting career, and he spent over half-a-decade touring the country, doing the absolute lowest form of entertainment for a formerly successful actor — dinner theater. This short interview from a local news station by Rod McCann — Pheonix’s answer to Hugh Downs, I guess — is believed to be Crane’s last television appearance. A week or so later, he was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale, Arizona hotel room. Years later, his friend, electronics salesman John Carpenter, was acquitted of the killing, but today, he remains the most possible suspect, likely because of his well-known, unhealthy relationship with Bob Crane. For years, Carpenter would follow Crane sycophant-style from town-to-town as the star continued to do his show Beginner’s Luck, participating in and filming a number of Crane’s sexual imbroglios. Witnesses later reported that the night before Crane was found slain, he and Carpenter had argued viciously at a restaurant. Perhaps Crane was breaking it off? Perhaps Carpenter was blackmailing him with the sex tapes? We’ll never know.
Long story short, if you haven’t seen Auto Focus from 2002, drop what you’re doing and watch it now!
What I find fascinating about this video is just how tired Crane looks. Like the Sean Young tape, it’s a truly honest portrait of a star who has been chewed up by an unforgiving system. Sure, both actors are not innocent in their downfall, but it just makes you wonder that if Crane had held on for a little longer — and not gotten himself killed — he would have had the kind of career resurgence in the 90s that directors like Tarantino were famous for giving actors. Bob Crane as Mr. White, anyone?
VIDEO 4: Virtual Reality 1991
Our final tape this week takes us back to September 19, 1991 (my 9th birthday!), when ABC Primetime Reporter Jeff Schaeffer is blown away by VR. The reason I love this one is how much the tech has gotten smaller over the years, though how similar the folks of the early 90s were wowed over the possibilities of VR compared to today. They are applications which we may have gotten closer to in the 21st century, but still allude us.
While VR in this news report is presented with applications for both gaming and business, the industry’s overemphasis on the former was pretty much what did it in a few years later. By 1999, VR was pretty non-existent in the culture, and it wasn’t until Palmer Lucky introduced the Oculus almost a decade later that it boomed back up in the way it’s still being discussed today as the next revolution. Well, kind of.
Let’s face it. VR is cool…for a few minutes. But for the general public, it’s just not practical and does not sustain interest, and I’m not sure it ever will. Still, they’re keeping at it, and some tech billionaire bros like Zuckerberg are willing to stake their entire companies on VR being the wave of the future. They’re always putting out new models and giving us stuff to do, and I’ve definitely been intrigued from time to time. But every time I think about going out to Best Buy and putting a few hundred clams down on the latest Quest Pro, I stop to remember that we’ve all been here before. In the past 50 years, we’ve continuously thrown money on the table for fleeting pieces of tech, and I’m just not sure VR has survived that stigma yet. I just don’t want to be that guy buying an Atari in October 1982.
VIDEO STREET VIDEO STORE -- Episode 2