I was late with everything this holiday. Even with my loves Siskel & Ebert.
The beginning of the special begins with Siskel explaining the Winky Dink & You playset re-release that was a sheet of film kids could place on the TV to draw along with the host. “Kids always forgot [to put the sheet on], and parents went nuts”. Remember when Muppet Babies had a similar setup?
Gene draws eyebrows on Aunt Martha. Ebert plays with the LJN VideoArt while Gene makes fun of him. I thought Video Art looked familiar….. I had seen a video years ago where a critic tried to play with it, and it was just awful. It mainly just drew straight lines, like the ones Roger made and Gene made fun of.
See? The man in the video I posted was trying to color. Siskel knew it was a crap product way back in 1987.
Gene actually suggests a Cover Girl guide to makeup with Christie Brinkley videotape as a holiday gift.
“What does foundation do? A lot!”
He also recommends a Larry Hagman (JR on Dallas) stop smoking instructional tape! Roger recommends A Christmas Story. This might be the earliest recommendation I’ve ever seen for this film, which as we all know by know flopped in the box office in 1983, but became popular through airings on TBS in the late 80s and early 90s.
Gene suggests Roxanne, which reminded me. A few days before I graduated from Mary Baldwin and moved away from Staunton in 2010, I was at the local library’s book sale. While there, I found Erols (the local video/tv/internet company at the time) rental dvds. I found Roxanne:
I didn’t buy it. These boxes were HUGE compared to regular vhs cases. Here is a commercial for Erol’s Video Club. Go rent a copy of the making of Thriller!
Oh oh oh, back to Roxanne. There was a man at my church back when I was little who had a large nose, and I remember thinking, “is he Roxanne?” because you know, being 4, 5 years old, you think Steve Martin is Roxanne because you’ve only seen the commercials.
Gene has that Panasonic VCR that came with the wand that you scanned barcodes with to set timer recordings more easier. Oh man, I wanted that VCR so bad as a kid. Now that I have a job where I scan ibsn’s all day, doesn’t sound so fun now. The commercial was one of the first old commercials I ever watched on YouTube back in 2006. Warning, scary talking hand face is scary.
Ha, Gene set it to timer record his own show. Roger then shows us a “super vhs” player, which was a format nobody bought. It was $1200! There wasn’t movies available for it yet in 1987! Roger also shows a Laserdisc player, which they call “laservision”.
They even broke out the Fisher Price pxl 2000 TV that only shot black & white video on cassette tapes. They made a mini movie:
The quality is so bad, but I think Roger made a youtube poop of Citizen Kane.
Gene put on a Roger mask. Looks almost like the JibJab of its day. There are some hobbyists who still shot on the pxl.
Here is the highlight of the show. Roger & Gene play Duck Hunt on the original Nintendo. Duck Hunt, Super Mario World and Tetris are the only Nintendo games I ever enjoyed playing. ‘Just wasn’t into video games. Roger only shoots one duck. Gene shot two. Gene prefers the Sega Master System to the Nintendo.
I was so afraid that this was going to be me at The Force Awakens last week. Thankfully the real3d glasses fit over my huge glasses.
Gne didn’t like Barbie and the Rockers. He said that barbie didn’t look like Barbie and Ken didn’t look like Ken. He thought the Teddy Ruxpin cartoons were boring.
Gene liked this video though. Up Close with the little boy from the last few seasons of The Facts of Life and he was in the Garbage Pail Kids Movie too!
You would think that would be the worst video holiday gift, but nope, at the end Gene and Roger have their picks for the worst.
Gene’s:
Lady Lovely Locks
It was a video that was personalized where if the partent sent the video company a pic of their kid, the kids’s pic was put in the movie. Much like Rod’s mall kiosk video on The Simpsons. I laughed so hard at this pic of Gene. Then I hurt myself because I pulled some muscles putting away my food processor on Christmas Eve. Oops.
Roger:
The Zapper
Some report control attachment where you didn’t have to point your remote directly at the TV anymore. It was $25!
saleintothe90s 