It's Critter Time!

I'd bet this is already fairly well known but it bears posting here - pretty big repository of educational and instructional VHS tapes freely available on archive.org. I've found some real good shit on here (check out "How To Be Cool At Parties")

https://archive.org/details/vhsinstructionals

I recommend the Magic the Gathering instructional video from 1999 if you want some peak 90s commercial vibes and a few good jokes:

This MTG vid has fascinated me for years as a PNW gal. The lead scientist guy is a local Seattle radio personality named Pat Cashman, who was heavily featured on Bill Nye the science guy.

In fact a lot of the production of this screams Bill Nye, right down to the editing and sound effects.


It seems pretty likely to me that like Bill Nye this was produced by local Seattle sketch show almost live:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_Live!

Since they were also the folks that made Bill Nye, in fact, Bill Nye was a spinoff and produced in Seattle.
(A great place to film a science show since you’re surrounded by universities and are a days drive from deserts mountains and even a rainforest)


But damned if I can find any actual information on the MTG videos production team! It seems pretty likely the same folks made it but there’s no IMDB credits except for…the pro magic players. Nothing in the video or even on the cardboard sleeve the video came in.

Baffling.

Slightly OT perhaps but I stumbled sometime ago onto the fact that in the 70s, Hanna-Barbera was kind of prolific in what they did with their licenses. One of the weirder things that came out of it was HB forming a sub-organization that started making educational films with their characters.

I say "films", what I mean are "slide shows with voice acted recordings". Due to some... weirdness between this new sub-org and HB itself, they didn't always have the rights or resources to use original assets and characters and voices too.

For some reason Velma from Scooby Doo in particular seems to change her voice repeatedly across the library, sometimes in the same tape. They have to re-use stills from shows and they don't always fit. It's kind of a calvacade of jank.

Anyway that stuff apparently got used in schools a lot in the 70s and 80s. Archive.org has a ton of it if you're curious.

I should note some of it aged like milk and reflects the politics of the times, and some of it goes into adult topics for educational purposes.

holy shit

hellojed wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 1:57 am holy shit

agreed. i don't think i've ever immediately coveted that much plastic in my life.

hellojed wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 1:57 am holy shit

Never been jealous of an educational(?) VHS before. I know I'd be all over this as a kid - honestly, I still am!

hellojed wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 1:57 am holy shit

I wonder if this was supposed to be something that ran on a TV in like, the toy department or a toystore? They don't quite seem like commercials, and they don't quite seem like a home VHS tape. It does seem like something that'd be playing on loop in the background trying to get *exactly* enough attention from a kid.