Hilarious hidden video clips and treasures at SteelStacks
Just when you thought it was safe to dump your old VHS collection into the Goodwill donation bin, Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (The Colbert Report) present The Found Footage Festival: Vol. 9 — outdoors at the Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks 8 p.m. Saturday, May 15.
That old six-hour TDK cassette labeled “Funky Cold Medina,” you know the one with your exercise routine from 1993, your bar mitzvah party from ’94, your high school graduation, and the video for your favorite Tone Loc song? You thought that tape was long gone. But if it made its way to the right Salvation Army store, it’s possible Pickett and Prueher are watching it right now.
“We love finding a tape with some hand-scrawled label on it and popping it in for the first time,” Prueher explans. “Lately, I’ve loved discovering new genres of tapes. For example, over the last two years, I’ve found a dozen church training videos for clergy members on how to do everything from ushering to being an altar boy.”
Prueher and Pickett plan on showing the best of this new church training genre alongside a montage of public access clips, a show from Winnipeg called “Math with Marty,” a tape labeled “bonion sergery,” and something called “Skiercise!”
The two friends grew up in a small town in Wisconsin without much to do, and started collecting weird VHS cassettes they found at local thrift shops in the early ’90s.
“We’d buy them and have viewing parties in our parents’ living rooms,” Prueher says. “Eventually, we had enough found footage and a running commentary of jokes and follow-ups on the videos that we took it out of basements and put it in a theater.”
Seventeen years later they’re still doing it. Not only do they curate a firstrate collection of these obscure relics,
and provide some fine analysis, they also do an occasional where-are-they-now update on the people featured in these films.
The Found Footage Festival got its official start in New York in 2004. Since then it’s sold out hundreds of shows throughout North America including the HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas, and has been featured on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
At the start of the pandemic their last tour was canceled, and they took the show online (foundfootagefest.com) where they have special guests, themed shows, and a collection of hilarious clips like “Video Dating,” “How to be a Real Man,” and “Carnival In Rio With Arnold Schwarzenegger.” While they haven’t been able to go thrifting during the last year, the online show has encouraged people to send in tapes, and they’ve been receiving tons of boxes from fans in the mail.
“It’s been incredible because we can’t be everywhere at once. That said, I do miss our yearly tour of Alaska, mainly to visit The Bishop’s Attic thrift shop in Anchorage. We found regional exercise videos there, a Blockbuster video training video, even a tape labeled “courtroom evidence.” Maybe one day we’ll make it back.”
Prueher and Pickett are comedy writers by trade and have worked in television for years, but doing this is their passion. Nothing is as satisfying as showing off your prized collection, talking about it, and getting paid for it.
“The Found Footage Festival has been our main source of income for almost two decades now. That’s pretty remarkable, even though it’s really hard to explain what you do to your grandparents.”
THE FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL: VOL. 9
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, May 15 Where: Outdoors and socially distanced at Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks, Bethlehem
Tickets and info: steelstacks. org/event/10588/found-footagefestival-vol-9 and 610-332-1300