Oddity Archive: Episode 264 - Ben Vs. The Quasar Great Time Machine 

I think I found the recording dates on most (if not all) of the tapes being demonstrated here. Tape #1 featuring one of the Walking Talls was actually KOMO's ABC Friday Night Movie airing of "Walking Tall Part 2" on January 6, 1978. The "Final Chapter" shown on the credits here did not air on television until ABC aired it later that year on October 22, 1978, as part of the network's Sunday Night Movie lineup. The first Walking Tall aired on NBC beforehand that same year. Tape #2 featuring the New York Big Apple, Barney Miller, and Zuma Beach could be recorded from more than one cable system or maybe it was that some guy probably stopped at a hotel in Pennsylvania after visiting New York to catch the movie after reading the New York Daily News. Back then on cable, New York had three Superstations so it could be one of them. As for Zuma, it is definitely original and recorded on NBC on September 27, 1978, as part of NBC's Wednesday Night At The Movies. The NBC station was still unidentified due to two or more markets crunching up each other. Since Barney Miller airs on Thursdays on ABC during the 1978-79 TV season, it could be recorded a little bit later after Zuma, but its airing date was unknown due to its short clip. Tape #3 featuring D*****land and the "Give Me A Dew" commercial is definitely recorded on July 24, 1981, and yes definitely from Seattle. I can tell because Ronald Dodge's body flew back to the United States and was buried that day. The Ronald Dodge story is actually recorded off of KING-TV (Seattle's NBC station), I can tell because of the graphics.

I'm pretty sure when they said "part 2", they meant the second half of the movie. The final Walking Tall movie ends with Buford Pusser's death--which this one ends with.

⁠Hmm, that’s odd. So did ABC F’ed up or did they just decided to reschedule it’s original scheduled film? Also to note is that the Final Chapter of Walking Tall aired on ABC twice. Once on October 22, 1978, and again on August 24, 1980 (both part of ABC Sunday Night Movie lineups). I tried finding the film’s Friday run but I cannot find it.

Possibly. I can confirm it's the last Walking Tall movie--Joe Don Baker was the lead in the first two, Bo Svenson in the last--it's Bo Svenson here. Now, I do have the second half or so of the 8/24/80 airing--the ads from it are on Annex. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VagceKXdaeQ.html As it stands, my best guess is this was a last-minute replacement for something else (maybe a sports event or something got rained out). I've also kicked around the idea of this being a 1981 airing, but ABC plugs an episode of "Soap" from '79--particularly one involving the Benson character, and Robert (Benson) Guillaume was out of the cast by '81. Everything feels like Summer filler about the surviving bits of ephemera on that tape, so I'm pretty confident it was mid-1979.

Gotcha! I recently found out that the main answer might be an originally-scheduled movie being rescheduled, because every Friday (until 1987) and Sunday (until 1998) ABC airs movies from its main lineup. Sports events on ABC mainly happen on weekends but it can happen weekly-around sometimes. Also to note on the “Shaggy D. A.” tape, it could be either its NBC television premiere (September 24, 1978), or its NBC rerun (March 30, 1980) of course both part of its Wonderful World of D****y anthology series.

how is this like a Rue Golberg machine

Hopefully tomorrow’s video puts it in a little extra perspective-no less frustrating though.

😂😂

That was my recording. Chosen because it was Public Domain and in color.

Ah. Well I feel sheepish but at least it makes sense now...

I fear I've fallen more into the "insane" column over the years.

When possible at least.

I would argue that it's more of a "what can be" or "more worse case scenario" (if you will). You can still go to thrift stores and find working VCRs for very cheap. That won't be true for much longer though, so I guess it that regard it really is a "things to come" video. Thankfully, you have to have a really crappy or really old VCR for it to give you that much trouble (or maybe I'm just lucky?).

What did he say? It was about ____ procreating? What goes in the blank? I couldn't understand that part...

Weirdly enough, they were still less explicit than the infamous 8mm reels--it was just the basic "plotlines" that were nutty.

Well those “movies” were never about plot.

@@OddityArchive we use to catch the obvious subliminals in the film reels in public school.. usually a very busty lady. and this was in educational films. sometimes it was plants or something static.. bowl of fruit I remember.

You are correct about the movie. Though, for the life of me, I don’t remember Part 2 ending with Buford Pusser’s death. However, this had to have aired in ‘79-there’s a promo for a rerun of an episode of “Soap” (not excerpted here) which first aired in 1979. I think this was a last-second replacement for something else (or substitute for something KOMO didn’t wish to air).

@@OddityArchive Or it may have been a slight tape-over that occurred for a few seconds.

There was one complete ad break-which is where the Soap promo occurs. CORRECTION: The Soap episode plugged is from January of 1978 (that's what I get from running on memories of reruns), so no earlier than that. They make no mention of it being a new episode.

UPDATE: Upon further investigation, I think that tape might be from Friday, January 6, 1978--assuming the "Soap" promo was for a new episode and not a rerun.

Absolutely hate it when they cut out all the commercials and then leave several minutes of BLANK tape at the end! It’s gotten to the point now whenever I see a commercial get cut, I say “fuck you” and hope whoever out there made that cut hears me.

I tried. Both tapes are, well, too hot for YT. The second tape went sticky and was clogging the VCR head every two minutes or so. Given how raw the tape stock is, I'm a bit hesitant to bake it. Some of the footage appears in next week's video (too much junk in the signal to be discernible).

Teac.

@@OddityArchive darn…😔

You'll see it more next week, but each tape reacts differently. I have an Archive Annex posting scheduled for this Summer that's a hodgepodge of Frame Sync or standalone TBC or a pure, straight signal. I've found that combining my Frame Sync Generator (w/TBC built-in--no way to separate the two) and standalone TBC just creates more problems. These VX tapes seem to retain every bit of interference that was broadcast.

Downright chonky.

As promised, here's the standard OA on it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LwovFMR8GCw.html

I'd love to replace the head on that thing for one. There was a parts unit on fleabay last week, but it would've been north of $200 after shipping--not really worth it to steal two small pieces from it.

I reserve the "mould" tag for non-American tapes.

@@OddityArchive It matters not where the tapes come from, the *universally correct* spelling is *"Mould"!*

@@neilforbes416 Not in America and the Philippines!

@@OldEqualsCool Because the Philippines' use of English has been *corrupted* by America! America is like the two-year-old toddler that claims to know more and better than his/her *grandparents!*

With all due respect, it really is absurd to claim that spellings matter in the way you suggested, since every country has different languages spoken and with different accents. It would actually be really weird if every nation that spoke English evolved it in the same way. And of course, the final nail: no country that speaks English has ever spelled or pronounced words the same for more than a few hundred years. You know how dramatically the English language has evolved simply by historical books or documents that were written only 500 years ago. Even documents such as the Declaration of independence contain very obvious examples of this linguistical evolution. And yes, I realize it's probably a joke. ☺