The Iddity Erchive

An Oddity Archive fanblog. Not affiliated with the Oddity Archive or the other endeavors of Ben Minnotte.

[tokkeki]

短足マンチカン♡よもぎ

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Oddity Archive YTP 1 - Big Mouth Benny Bass

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

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Wonder if Ben will ever come across one of these (I think Techmoan did an episode about a standy-uppy turntable but I’d have to go dig for it).

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I think Buzzfeed might be a little late to this.

Some women at Buzzfeed tried the Rejuvenique mask. Unlike Ben, none of them turned into Linda Evans.

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“Portakabin TV” was a song performed by Sir Richard Stilgoe and broadcast during the final broadcast from Southern Independent Television. As long-time viewers of Oddity Archive will know, that station was the sole channel through which the Ashtar Galactic Command chose to broadcast their message of peace and warning in 1977.

A lot of people seem to find this song in bad taste, as it apparently takes unfair swipes at Television South (the station that took over SIT at the beginning of 1982). While I can see that aspect of it, I also think this song’s one heck of a tune. It’s just a shame that ol’ Vrilly didn’t get a shout-out.

(For what it’s worth, Sir Stilgoe is apparently a lovely man when he’s not playing diss tracks against innocent broadcasters.)

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Mod Bell here (formerly Mod Soviet) during the hiatus, to bring some interesting context to a few Archive topics. This is an interesting look at, among other boxes, the ON TV decoders discussed in the Pay TV episode of Archive.

Interesting to note: despite Ben’s report that clones of the boxes were plentiful and easily made, Mark Davis seems to consider it to have been a much more complicated undertaking, considering that the actual electronics used were, evidently, coated in epoxy to obscure just what they were. While I’m sure some industrious Chicagoans got all up in there, and eventually figured it out (hence the news reports Ben excerpted about piracy) it’s interesting to consider what sheer work went into piracy back then (certainly a lot more than now, with the plentiful availability of peer-to-peer file sharing).

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And so ends another season of Oddity Archive. At least Ben got away from trying to pull another “fauxnale” like the infamous “Death of Analog(ue) TV” episode from a couple of years ago. Pretty sure he’s learned his lesson about scaring most of his fanbase half to death now.

But now, quite some time after this blog started, Ben’s now up to over 22,000 subscribers and over 100 Patreon donors (including Yours Truly). Success sometimes comes slowly, but I think the slower you build up, the longer you stay. And I think this is pretty good for a niche channel. I was happy to see that his video from a year or two back about the DuMont Network made its way to an article at The AV Club about DuMont. It was an inclusion I was pleasantly surprised to see.

But to the episode: I was actually a grown-ass woman in the 1990s -- fresh out of college, looking to make my way and start my life, and I remember the 1990s well, in all their eye-gouging, hideous, hyper-colour, OMG RAD graphics. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, and certainly worn things we’re ashamed of. And somehow, later on, nostalgia kicks in. For me however, I still just kind of want to gouge my eyes out. I mean OMG these look sooooo low budget today.

And needless to say, that stuff is on full display here in his trip through video magazines -- clunky, impractical, and not really interactive things that we maybe had to do with just before the dawn of The Internet As We Know It, and many years before YouTube.

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This ought to make you soil your pants: Newly posted to Fuzzy Memories’ YouTube page is this tape from Chicago’s WGN-TV, dated from April 1985 (according to the extensive notes on the YouTube page).

It never aired, but I assume was kept around just in case of, well, you know. I’m assuming here that WGN was a PEP (or Primary Entry Point) station in the Chicagoland area, and remains so under the Emergency Alert System (the successor to the EBS).

[damnfinedesign]

Retro Tape by Marius Roosendaal

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Yeah that’s what we need around here, another Betamax.

[oldshowbiz]

1966 - a classic of Chicago psychedelic rock

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Go all the way back to OA Episode 4 (the first Local TV installment -- starting at 21:29) -- and remember this was the band introduced by Elaine “Pandora” Mulqueen in the Kiddie A Go Go clip (or, “Hey! You’re not Paul Revere and The Raiders!”)

[gutshotsthrift]

In case you want to play some cassettes in your 8 track.

[heck-yeah-old-tech]

I’m curious how they can be serious about the $7.99 price tag.

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Featured in a Ben’s Junk installment (Episode 63.5, here). I vaguely remember Ben’s demonstration didn’t go quite so well.

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I got a 'B'-word for ya, lady.

Ed the Editor, “Episode 119 — Random Kiddie Records”, Oddity Archive, Feb. 16, 2017

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NPR, by way of Consequence of Sound: The Shaggs, the queen mothers of outsider rock music, are slated for a reunion-ish gig at Solid Sound, a Massachusetts festival being curated by the band Wilco, which will also perform (along with other definitely-not-outsider-music headliners Television, Kurt Vile, and the Robert Glasper Experiment).

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I really DO have a reason for posting a They Might Be Giants video here: In addition to their grownup pop output -- about 30 years’ worth, Johns Flansburgh and Linnell have also recorded some excellent music intended for children. To me, their best childrens’ album is Here Comes Science (from whence this came). A collection of solid earworms that are also educational. I can go for that.

Now that you’ve had a taste of what *quality* childrens’ music can be, you can be inoculated against the exact opposite in Ben’s newest OA episode. 

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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7fkmNZPHFw)

This reminded me of this blog and of Archive.

[broadcastarchive-umd-deactivate]

When Art Conservation Means Repairing TVs, Not Canvases

A technician who was at the vanguard of video art is training a new generation in how to preserve it.

H/T to Patrick McCray ‏@LeapingRobot

[heck-yeah-old-tech]

Three 8mm home movies from Castle Films…

Pierre Bear “Salmon Yeggs” (1965) [several eBay sellers, no YouTube] Abbott & Costello “Rocket Roll” (1953) [no video: NBC owns/blocked it] Magilla Gorilla “Motorcycle Magilla” (1964)

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Home video really did exist before the advent of home video as we know it (i.e. Beta, VHS, and later DVD/BluRay). Also some Castle Films dreck has turned up in past Archive episodes.