Film, Static, Lava...Hate!

Some of you may be too young (or too old) to remember this, but at one point in mankinds spotted history of media indulgence, there was one format that we as humans dabbled in that was doomed to failure. No it was not VHS, Beta or Reel to Reel. It was known as the VideoDisc.

An entire film, television show, or pansy ass musical stored onto a record like storage device, which was then placed into a plastic sleeve, which you THEN shoved into a VCR-Record Player combo/hybrid machine to watch said visual splendors. When half of your eye candy galore was over you simply walked up to your machine, slid in your plastic casing, slid out your casing, flipped it over, slid it back in to the reverse side, and resumed watching whatever the hell you were watching...which was probably Grease 2.

Yes, the VideoDisc was from what I could remember, and google, the precursor to the Laserdisc. You could fastforward with the touch of a button, you didn't have to rewind it when it was over and altogether it was just an amazing thing to behold.

Yes, it was a glorious thing to watch, listen and yes, love.

As you can probably tell from this Fact, my family were one of the few beholders of this amazing piece of technology in not only the untamed wilds of Priest Lake(where technology was considered black magic), but also the world. I can't exactly recall how we came into possession of this lost technology, but it was of little consequence to me. What really mattered to me was the fricking movies!

We had things I had never seen before and couldn't believe existed: Airplane! Star Trek the Motion Picture, episodes of Star Trek, The Longest Day, Fiddler on The Roof (which for some reason I kept watching though I couldn't stand. Topol must rock that much), Charlie Brown cartoons, and more...because I honestly can't remember the other ones. I know we had the unfortunate happiness of owning 'Grease 2', and an episode of 'Little House on the Prairie', but trust me we had a shitload of other films of higher quality and Oscar worthy esteem.

It was always something I could count on, that VideoDisc player. I could always go down in my basement, turn on the TV, and slide in that big square plastic monstrosity of a film and just relax and know the only time I would ever have to get up was halfway through a film, and never ever be bothered to rewind it when it was over. It was truly bliss dear readers, truly bliss.

But bliss can only last so long.

One day, as I giddily flew down the stairs to try and attempt to watch yet again the final episode of 'The Fugitive' (having never seen any other episode in my entire life), something was awry. The warm, comforting VideoDisc logo and its soothing theme song didn't play out on the television like I had memorized it. No, it was replaced by something else. Something awful.

Static.

Not just any static though. The kind of static that would just barely let you see the magical wonder that lay beyond it's flickering snow like blanket of pain and confusion that consistently blasted in your face. The kind of static that is so loud and obnoxious, that it sounds like a dozen tiny leprechauns just magically jumped out of your sofa and immediately started dancing and flatulating in your face.

The kind of Static that fills you with hate.

My blood boiled red! This could not be! I immediately pulled out the disc and switched sides to see if the same affliction had cursed its backside. Once again, nothing but hate filled static. An immediate solution presented itself: test another disc to see if it too is suffering the same fate as the finale episode of 'The Fugitive'. I then turned to a trusted classic, 'The Fantastic Voyage', which had never let me down before. It too had had succumb to the fate of the hell static.

Now it was a matter of desperation. I pilfered frenetically through our vast collection of discs and as fast and efficiently as I possibly could I slid them in and out of the player to see if they were infected with the same strange disease as their fellow brethren had been.

One after the other it was the same thing: static, static, static! Finally after I had gotten around to 'Ordinary People' I had given up and decided that they were all doomed to suffer the same fate. Sitting on my knees in front of the television, head hung low, I faced the fact that an old friend had finally passed.

I somberly walked back up the stairs to tell my parents the sad news. "Well, you're father will take a look at it." was all my mother said, not realizing the gravity of the situation. I didn't have the heart to tell her that all was lost.

Days had passed. Or was it weeks? I couldn't remember, it was all a haze. The shock of it all was so hard to take that everything was a blur for quite some time. But then the real tragedy came.

As my mother had promised my father had indeed taken a look into the horror that had befallen upon the VideoDisc player. Rather than discovering what was wrong with said player and correcting it, he had stumbled upon something far worse.

Somehow, with his keen detective skills, or both of my parents combined, it was found that my younger brother and sister had decided to take it upon themselves to enter the wonderful world of their imagination! In this wonderful world they also decided to create and play a game called "Don't Fall In The Lava". Let me explain the rules!

The game goes like this: the entire carpet of the basement is considered lava, and you can't touch it. You can only stand/step on furniture to be safe. THIS INCLUDES VIDEODISCS!!!!

So, unbeknownst to everyone, my two little siblings were down in the basement happily bouncing around on VideoDiscs for hours on end, doing their very best to stay safe from the unending dangers of carpet lava. During this hapy little time they managed to destroy every single VideoDisc film we owned.

Finding out what had happened to my dear VideoDiscs offered me no closure. Oddly enough I was the only one who was pissed off at this whole affair. Everyone else seemed to brush it off as an "Eh, it was going to die anyways" type of event. Not me. No, I saw it as a vast collection of fine film and strange, sporadic episodes of television just being tossed away in a blink of an eye, never to be watched again.

At least my brother an sister are safe from the lava.

So it's a Fact: I'll never get to see that last episode of 'The Fugitive'. Though if I remember right it was pretty damn crappy.