Marathon Man 

Working my way through a box of old VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s, many of them unlabeled, is a never-ending series of Christmas mornings opening wrapped gifts, each cassette holding another surprise. So far, they’ve mostly indicated what a sucker I was for those Boomer TV marathons the cable channels used to run. I’ve fast-forwarded my way already through hours and hours of The Outer Limits, The Wild, Wild West, The Adventures of Superman, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the Three Stooges – all of which looks an awful lot like my current DVR viewing habits. 

But they’re also a reminder that there was time when cable seemed to care a lot more about programming than it does today with its endless recycling of ancient TV Westerns and half-day blocks of infomercials. TBS aired its Wild, Wild West and U.N.C.L.E. marathons with new commentary from Robert Conrad and Robert Vaughan. Even the not-so-super superstation WWOR had Jack Larsen host its Superman marathon. The Stooges episodes I taped more than 30 years ago off AMC are still shown on the channel, but often edited down to six minutes from their original twenty, plus more commercials to pad things out to a crisp 15 minutes. 

Because blank VHS tapes were somewhat costly, we did a lot of re-recording over programs we’d already watched. Something I’m hoping to uncover is what’s known in painting as pentimento – I had to look it up – the “presence or emergence of earlier images, forms or strokes that have been painted over.” Maybe a Superman episode will end abruptly and some exotic, rarely seen movie or a New York Giants football game will appear. So far, I’ve only uncovered a hidden last hour of the forgettable Schwarzenegger film “The Running Man” and a Scooby Doo cartoon. 

Recognizing the more ephemeral aspects of taped television, I find myself now fast-forwarding through the shows and watching the commercials. Hair Club for Men. Tote bags that come with a subscription to Time magazine. The Pathmark guy. All of which leads me to a videotape existential crisis. Am I the last person to have these fleeting moments of airtime in my possession and now have the responsibility for the preservation and stewardship of commercials for Carvel’s Fudgie the Whale and Slim Whitman’s “All My Best” album? I almost don’t want to check YouTube to see if they exist in perpetuity there. 

OK, I checked. They’re both on YouTube. I’m off the hook.