VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

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domino harvey
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VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#1 Post by domino harvey » Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:28 pm

I’m not a huge fan of the ironic re-appropriation of bad 80s/90s video culture exhibited by Tim and Eric and other Adult Swim programs, but this is in part because I think Everything is Terrible! already fills that void pretty well using actual regrettable cultural artifacts, sliced up and rejoined together in Frankenstein monsters of anti-nostalgia. I’ve enjoyed all of the previous DVD compilations Everything is Terrible has put out to varying positive degrees, but they have truly outdone themselves with their latest offering, Everything is Terrible! Does the Hip-Hop. The 47 minute program is part of a recent double feature, sharing disc space with a compilation of awful stand-up performances cobbled together to highlight the throughline of unfunny schtick from hacks like Gallagher et al (Five minutes of jokes about Mexicans from a dozen comics, then five minutes of rotten bits about gays, etc). That program is solid entertainment and typical of the usual EIT aesthetic, but Does the Hip-Hop exists on a whole other plane of enjoyment.

In what is legitimately a concise and cogent work of social criticism, EIT Does the Hip-Hop compiles dozens of horrendously misguided and sincere attempts to pander to assorted audiences under the guise of jovial rapping. As a catalog of Adults Think Kids Are Idiots, it’s unsurpassed. As a collection of racial usurpation and toothless white cultural reappropriation, it’s second to none. But, most surprisingly, the clips are seamlessly mixed together and backed Girl Talk-style with familiar samples and mashups, while the video screen itself is filled with hundreds of VHS-sourced clips to visually accompany a given track, in the process becoming the most unexpectedly enjoyable video mixtape imaginable. I don’t even know what to call this: Is it one of the best albums of 2015? One of the best films? The greatest work of criticism? The most unwaveringly entertaining cultural object? All of the above, I guess.

Rewatching it again, I was struck by just how many awful ideas people have had in the last thirty years. We have multiple Christian raps, mostly delivered by white people, with highlights including an ode to home schooling and an astonishing performance of “Gimme That Christian Side Hug” that refutes the existence of a merciful God purely by existing. There’s the various corporate videos meant to make employee education fun: I sadly actually sat through the whole Pier 1 Imports customer service rap sampled here when I worked there in college, and internet staples like the Wendys’ grill guide rap are present as well. There’s celebrities who should have known better, like Dr Oz, Tom Hanks, and, most cringe-inducingly, Anne Hathaway dropping an endless “freestyle” about paparazzi on Conan O’Brien (here hilariously backed by a Bruce Hornsby sample). Mostly we get raps that make learning “fun” for kids, and these are plentiful and universally awful, or should I say awe-full. The cheapest but surest laugh in the entire program is a breakdown of a science rap educating children on their buttocks, rapped with the same pronunciation Forest Gump used, and endlessly recycled in order to make it palatable to young people. It, like everything else here, is a grim look at how clueless those in charge of anything usually are, be they for commercials (Not just Tide or McDonalds, but cable companies and, perhaps most memorably, a DC realtor) or TV programming or film soundtracks (Teen Witch of course shows up, as do Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer’s dueling franchise contributions). Everything is Terrible! Does the Hip-Hop is the most entertaining and concise history of cultural pandering imaginable, and well worth the $15 it’s going for on the EIT website (where it’s a professionally pressed DVD, FYI). Highly recommended.

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beamish13
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Re: The Films of 2015

#2 Post by beamish13 » Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:35 pm

This looks terrific. I love culture jamming/mondo collage stuff like EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! and TV CARNAGE (their CASUAL FRIDAYS compilation is incredible, and even has a commentary track).

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Re: The Films of 2015

#3 Post by sir_luke » Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:01 pm

I have not seen this particular film but I adore Everything is Terrible! to the point that I just purchased DoggieWoggiez PoochieWoochiez, their all-dog remake of The Holy Mountain. I definitely understand what you mean about ironic repurposing, but there also seems to be a gently growing subculture of people who are intent on just putting the original content out there without excessive alteration (though, from what it seems, it's more commonly done in - very - short form, as Vine accounts like It Came From the VCR, OGVHS, Grimy Ghost!, and - of course - Everything is Terrible indicate). It's even more fascinating when it's intelligently compiled into more ambitious projects like this, though, and EIT seems to have that particular market cornered.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Films of 2015

#4 Post by domino harvey » Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:54 pm

Thanks for the tip on TV Carnage, beamish, I picked up the two compilations (including Casual Fridays) that were available on Amazon to see if they're also my cup of tea. EIT's Dante Fontana is also branching out into his own side releases, including an intriguing-sounding mashup of over a hundred Disney movies from the last thirty years and many compilations of 60s and 70s pop artifacts notably absent from much of the 80s-forward focus of other cultural video artists. Some of these titles are also available via EIT's storefront as well.

sir_luke, I think it's an interesting trend and a more novel way to engage with 80s/90s nostalgia than the Buzzfeed and Jimmy Fallon school of "Does anyone else remember (inane thing from a 90s kid's childhood)?" (I can't help but think of Jon Wurster's satirical fake band name, "Remember Cereal," created to cash in on the nostalgia craze on the Best Show on WFMU)

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#5 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:15 pm

Watched Casual Fridays last night and must admit I didn't like it at all. If anything, it shows how hard it can be to edit together random unusual clips into something you'd want to watch for an extended period of time, and reveals how good Everything is Terrible is at doing this kind of thing. There's no real unifying vision here, other than channel surfing, and most of the clips included aren't nearly strange or notable enough to merit inclusion. They're also so quickly used and discarded that there's no attempt made to engage their perceived weirdness. It's telling that I barely remember anything outside of the times when the comp slows down to actually savor one of its sources: the terrifying cooking show hosted by a "huntress" wherein "nutritious" squirrel melts are made is one of the few highlights here, in part because its allowed to play out for more than five seconds. But I don't understand why some/most of the material here is included: Why are bootlegged dailies of Anna Nicole Smith blowing her lines in Skyscraper fair game for this comp? What is being commented on by overlaying a rotten karaoke performance by a seven year old onto the famous boombox scene from Say Anything? Everything is Terrible seems to delight in and love its weirdos and freaks, but TV Carnage, based on this evidence, would rather mock all "low" culture (shots of some anonymous female-led 80s adventure squad are cut to at least ten times here, for no real reason than to mock TV drama at large, I guess?) with a flat disdain and unearned superiority. Maybe I will like the other compilation I bought better, but if not I think I've reached the end of my exploration of this crew's output.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#6 Post by beamish13 » Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:27 pm

I'm glad you checked out Casual Fridays! I think it was produced by some folks up in Canada, which explains some of the local news footage interspersed in a few scenes. That clip with the man making the "joke" about chasing people who use wheelchairs and the bizarre 360 degree camera move afterwards will forever be ingrained in my mind. By any chance, did you listen to the commentary? The guy uses a modulator to disguise his voice, which adds to its absurdity.

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#7 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:29 pm

I did not, but my copy did come with an assortment of weird physical bonuses inside the case, including a silk-screened barf bag!

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#8 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Feb 22, 2016 1:15 pm

It sounds like that might be difficult to wash after use!

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zedz
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#9 Post by zedz » Mon Feb 22, 2016 4:21 pm

This reminds me of the UK TV show from the 90s Manhattan Cable, which collected the weirdest bits and pieces from New York public access television. The clips were interspersed with more standard "ain't Americans weird?" interview segments (powered by the presenter's camp gusto), but some of the ultra-low rent cable footage (inept, decrepit bedroom cabaret; religious services; bathtub lectures; TV shows about the directors' pets) was indelibly weird. It looks like some episodes are up on YouTube.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#10 Post by swo17 » Mon Feb 22, 2016 6:09 pm

domino harvey wrote:I don’t even know what to call this: Is it one of the best albums of 2015? One of the best films?
EIT Does the Hip-Hop was pretty great, but where are you getting the 2015 release date? The DVD appears to have come out in 2013, which incidentally makes it eligible for 2010s lists projecting. Purposes. Um, word.

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#11 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 22, 2016 6:16 pm

Whoops! If only there was an educational rap for double-checking release dates Image

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colinr0380
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#12 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Feb 22, 2016 6:23 pm

zedz wrote:This reminds me of the UK TV show from the 90s Manhattan Cable, which collected the weirdest bits and pieces from New York public access television. The clips were interspersed with more standard "ain't Americans weird?" interview segments (powered by the presenter's camp gusto), but some of the ultra-low rent cable footage (inept, decrepit bedroom cabaret; religious services; bathtub lectures; TV shows about the directors' pets) was indelibly weird. It looks like some episodes are up on YouTube.
Ah, those were the days! (I guess the popularity of Wayne's World had a lot to do with programmes about American public access television getting commissioned?). Although I always used to get Laurie Pike and Katie Puckrick confused as the American presenters on uncouth-youth oriented late night 90s UK television.

(Though I'm more of a late 90s "4Later" kid which in amongst truly great stuff like The Trip, Eurotika and Oz threw in late night rubbish, but watchable rubbish, like Vids and Loves Like A Dog, in which various 'celebrities' were give money to spend on clips of footage from weird shows from around the world. It was horribly rigged though, with the presenters forcing their guests to spend money on specific segments without any other option! It was very much a "I know you want to spend all of this £2000 on the rude sex shows, but we're going to use £750 to force you to watch the next episode of our South American soap opera" situation!)
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#13 Post by Gregory » Mon Feb 22, 2016 8:39 pm

I enjoy things like this when they're done well, so I'm tempted to check this out, but reading this thread sent me back to an educational rap video that made me suffer on multiple occasions in the late ’80s, and it was an odd rock to look under. On more than one field trip to the zoo, we were sat down in the auditorium to watch a horrifically dippy rap video about the rainforests and their rapid demise, delivered by a guy who keeps popping out from behind things, wide-eyed, saying "raaaaain-forest!" Despite the jungle theme, some of the video was shot in urban locations to try to give it a veneer of street cred.
After the screenings of this stinker, incidentally, we were encouraged to do nothing whatsoever about the problem, even though the video explained that if the rainforests were going to be saved from total destruction by the year 2000, it was up to us!

My thought about this pith-helmeted MC was, of course the guy in the video was just some struggling actor and not the same person who recorded the rap. Why would they bother to use the same person? Wrong again, and I found out that he went on to a brief commercial rap career under the name Jesse Jaymes, which seems like more of a pornstar name than a rap handle but was the least of his problems creatively. Yet he was on the same label as Tone Loc and the Pharcyde, Delicious Vinyl.
Due to curiosity, I subjected myself to videos of his such as "Shake It Like a White Girl" and "College Girls (Are Easy)," in which he proves himself to be one of the biggest douches in the business and far worse than Vanilla Ice. And the rest of the story? He turned out to be...
"This isn't one of those stories where the guy turns out to be Richard Nixon, is it?"
No, but he ended up being a major entrepreneur, married the founder of Spanx, and now they're billionaires. Extremely depressing. He recently published a book about hiring a Navy SEAL to move in with him and kick his ass to get him in better shape. The Navy SEAL should have kicked his ass for being such a wack MC in his past life.

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#14 Post by domino harvey » Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:08 am

Got my package of titles from Dante Fontana in very quickly and I’m already on a winning streak. The menu screens and the programs themselves on the double feature the Mouseketeers Escape to Splash Mountain / the Golden Girls Return From Space Mountain all feature the Everything is Terrible logo, but I suspect this was a planned mainline EIT DVD release that was abandoned due to the litigious nature of its subject. The two programs are both about a half hour long, the first focusing more on intercut specials dealing with celebrating Walt Disney World / Land, and the second spent more on celebrity-driven holiday specials taking place at the parks (though there’s carryover to both specials). The first is typical EIT stuff, enjoyable but a little “…and?", but Golden Girls Return… is nothing but net and easily one of the funniest EIT comps I’ve seen yet. Within minutes I was in tears of laughter at things like the supercut of Alex Trebeck and his co-host saying “pixie dust” for what feels like minutes on end and sustained evidence that Regis Philbin is the world’s biggest asshole (at one point he threatens the life of a toddler!). B-list celebrities and TV stars are made to recite horrible dialogue, but fare even worse when going off the cuff (Alan Thicke’s comment to Joan Lunden is legit the most jaw-droppingly cringe-y moment here, and that’s a competitive category). The EIT editors have a field day overlaying two (!) different Winnie the Pooh warnings against stranger danger (one in each special) with clips of the adult hosts and celebrities inappropriately fondling children and suggesting untoward relations. It’s completely unfair. And hilarious. The DVD comes with forty minutes of full musical performances as bonus, in case you wanted to see a full-length duet between Cheech Marin and Phylicia Rashad on “It’s Magic.” Those needing immediate gratification can watch the Golden Girls Return... in its entirety on YouTube via EIT

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#15 Post by The Narrator Returns » Thu Feb 25, 2016 3:10 am

Golden Girls Return From Space Mountain is my first experience with Everything is Terrible, and I am pretty much an instant convert. Aside from the moments domino singles out, Emilio Estevez earnestly spreading the word about acid rain made me laugh harder than many things in recent memory.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#16 Post by Minkin » Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:58 am

This came to mind during the balloon launch sequence.

Highlights for me were the pirates going "Yar, forget the fritter." Or any scene with Br'er Bear dancing (or playing keytar). Or George Foreman's overzealous appreciation of candy being made. This was as funny as Domino promised & more.

I barely remember any of these specials. Very much looking forward to seeing Escape to Splash Mountain as I think I've somehow seen all of the Disneyland promotional videos that they'd send you endlessly in the mail.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#17 Post by Emak-Bakia » Thu Feb 25, 2016 11:38 am

I’ve been aware of Everything is Terrible for several years (mostly since I know they’ve come through town a number of times for screenings), but have never checked out much of their stuff aside from a few short YouTube videos. I think I’ll certainly be investigating further.

Along similar lines, I love Tobacco’s Fucked Up Friends videos. Each one (volumes 1 and 2) is an album-length compilation of EIT-like 80s/early 90s strangeness set to Tobacco’s funky beats. Some guy from Ohio named Beta Carnage edited the videos together. It certainly helps if you like Tobacco’s tunes, but, for me, his music and the visuals complement each other very nicely. It strikes that difficult to achieve balance between sound and image, where one never overwhelms the other.

I suppose the general theme is just lo-fi cultural detritus, though some of the recurring subject matters are gruesome horror movie deaths (Street Trash figures prominently and is even the title of one of Tobacco’s songs) and aerobic videos. Volume 2 also features disturbing footage of an 1800s-set porn film in which a man, in full Victorian garb, has relations with an E.T.-knockoff. As with so much of this stuff, it has to be seen to be believed. These kind of videos make perfect background entertainment for parties. I’ve shown them many times over the years and the E.T. clips always seem to grab people’s attention (not sure what that says about the company I keep. :P )

Volume one was released on DVD, but both volumes were released together on a blu-ray/DVD combo pack (which proudly proclaims on the back of the case to be the world’s first lo-fi, lo-res blu-ray.) Both are out of print and go for absurd sums, but, fortunately, some kind soul has uploaded volume 2 to YouTube.

I suppose this idea of rescuing moving images from the trash heap is nothing new, since this is essentially what many microcinemas were doing in the 80s and 90s (and no doubt prior. Hell, the rediscovery and preservation of the LoC’s paper film print collection in the 40s and 50s is the same idea. And, of course, there was Langlois even before then.) – only now it’s with a different, freshly-dead type of media being viewed through a camp lens.

One last note for anyone interested in microcinemas: I have to recommend this indispensable volume from Incite Journal.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#18 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun May 29, 2016 10:56 pm

I was lucky enough to spot three Everything is Terrible DVDs when scouring a Half Price Books, and one of them was Does the Hip-Hop. I watched it tonight, and somehow domino has managed to undersell what a jaw-dropping volume this is. If nothing else, the overwhelming amount of fast food ads and training videos may do a better job of putting me off fast food than Fast Food Nation could dream of doing, and it ends on a stunningly, unintentionally bittersweet note. If you need me, I'll be buying a "Jesus is Lord" t-shirt and some parachute pants.

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#19 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:10 pm

EIT is having a sale, all of their DVDs are only $6.66 each, including the immortal Does the Hip Hop

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#20 Post by Swift » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:18 am

domino harvey wrote:Those needing immediate gratification can watch the Golden Girls Return... in its entirety on YouTube via EIT
Ouch, the moment at 20:20 in the Stranger Danger segment is unfortunate and painfully cringeworthy.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#21 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 20, 2017 3:00 pm

EIT is having a sale today only, all DVD titles for only $4.20 each

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#22 Post by domino harvey » Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:55 pm

Watched Everything is Terrible's new compilation, the Great Satan, and it's another winner from this collective. At 74 minutes, I was concerned going in that it would overstay its welcome, but by the end I was sad to see it finish. This project takes two EIT mainstays and smooshes them together, as works made for a Christian audience and gory horror movies (among many, many other sources) get melded into an exploration of Satanism far, far removed from the abstract. If I conservatively estimate that there are between 10-20 different clips used per minute, that takes us to an average of over a thousand different sources employed by this compilation, and it follows the more intuitive bridging and flow of the last couple EIT comps in weaving a quasi-narrative out of free-association. We go from Genesis (at one point literally) to everyone dying and going to Hell, and everything in between. Pastors try to connect with their flock (including a gaudy chant praising virginity that the petrified-looking teens in the audience repeat rather sheepishly) and non-believers (most memorably in a clip where John Hagee narrates a video for those left behind after the Rapture where he confidently states he ascended); Satanism is explained from both sides of the issue and illustrated with absurdly explicit horror flick clips, several of which I sadly recognized from my penance spent in the Horror List thread; clips are taken out of context with remarkable acumen (as when a Christian host asks the audience if they’d want “this guy” asking out their daughter, and EIT edits in an image of Gerbert) and sometimes what’s been excerpted is so shocking that it’s impossible to believe context would help (as when a stentorian host confidently states something about babies that is so crudely expressed that I will not type it out for fear of being put on a list, or how two kids talk about Jesus literally having sex with believers), and some of the clips are so funny you wish the comp came with a field guide (what the FUCK was up with the movie about the guy who sold his soul for a bigger penis, which included the immortal line, “Will I be able to take my big dick with me to Hell?”); and of course, all the EIT mainstays like Duane and Jerry Maguire are here too.

The DVD also includes what appears to be several hours’ worth of bonus mini-compilations built around other themes, and as with all other EIT DVDs, it’s a real pressed disc (and this time it’s available from retailers, so you can pick it up on Amazon, Best Buy, et al). Highly recommended, though the squeamish should not apply unless you can handle things like (fictional, horror movie) decapitation super-edits and people getting their bodies ripped apart alongside more light-hearted inclusions like what appeared to be gay porn starring a CGI demon and the detour into aligning police officers with the Devil!

EDIT: I was way, way off. According to the trailer, there's over 2000 different sources used in the special

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#23 Post by Gregory » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:47 pm

Quibi rips off Everything Is Terrible. If it had merely been a striking similarity in the concept or the aesthetic, it could conceivably been just a coincidence, but when the concept and the aesthetic and even the name of the thing are all suspiciously similar to an existing thing, it looks pretty shameless. Just another example of a big company seeing something made by an artist or small art collective and taking it. Usually there are no legal repercussions for this.

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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#24 Post by swo17 » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:17 am

On a whim I just checked EIT's website, added their DVD mega pack to my cart, and discovered that it was half off for some reason. That's just a little over $50 for seven DVDs after shipping is added!

Where can I find Golden Girls Return from Space Mountain though?

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domino harvey
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Re: VHS Culture Collaging (Everything is Terrible, et al)

#25 Post by domino harvey » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:30 am

I bought it from Dante Fontana, but he currently lists it as unavailable on his website. I’m guessing someone told the infamously litigious Disney about it and they C+Ded it, because unlike official EIT releases it was just a DVD-R so it shouldn’t go OOP

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