Hands down my all-time favorite VHS find was a stack of 10 or so tapes that all included recordings of Saturday Morning WVVA/NBC broadcasts from the mid 1980s — with those sweet, vintage commercials intact!
What excites me most about these types of recordings is the nostalgic rush I get from knowing I was probably perched in front of the big faux wooden television in the living room watching these exact same WVVA broadcasts as they originally aired. I can almost taste the sausage biscuits mom would frequently prepare for my brother and I as we rolled out of bed and prepared for a day of cartoons, ‘rasslin, video games and whatever other adventures lay ahead. Revisiting those days through the power of videotape is truly the closest we have to time travel… at least until I get this flux capacitor figured out.
There’s very little local material on this particular tape, which features a one-hour block of ‘Mister T’ and ‘Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.’ It was recorded during the 1985-86 season — I believe November 23, 1985, to be exact. The only local spot is for the Princeton Learning Center, which was located on Bee Street. But if you were a child of the 80s like me you won’t be disappointed by the array of toy commercials present here: GI Joe, Transformers, GoBots, Masters of the Universe, Super Powers, Care Bears — all the heavy hitters of 1985.
Enjoy the trip down memory lane in the video below, and check out the Youtube channel for more of the same!