The Found Footage Festival
The Found Footage Festival may be one of the most perplexingly unknown comedic acts/shows of our time. Sure, they have a dedicated following (Hello, my fellow Melindas!), but these guys should be huge. You’ve probably seen videos they’ve featured in their live touring show; a compilation of outtakes that became the viral internet sensation Winnebago Man, numerous clips from Don’t Copy That Floppy, and pieces from a ton of corporate training materials. These videos just scratch the surface of what Nick and Joe have been collecting on thousands of VHS tapes for over 35 years, and the stuff they’ve amassed in this vast collection is incredible and strange.
I first discovered their work through a series of videos they did for The AV Club back in 2010 or so, and I went to my first live show of theirs shortly thereafter. If you love the absurdity of things like local commercials, public access tv, and religious sing along videos, you’ve found your people. As of this writing they’ve released 10(!) volumes of their live show, available both streaming and on physical media.
Did I mention that they also have a weekly web series on YouTube? VCR Party Live can be found airing on their channel every Tuesday at 9 PM EST, and follows the hosts as well as their producer Steve, and in-house VHS detective George. Tune in to see the new videos and oddities they’ve recently discovered, as well as further context regarding previously seen videos. Also check out Shaturday Morning Cartoons, a show where Nick, Joe, George, and a rotating cast of guests explore the obscure, and often low quality cartoons that most of us have rightfully forgotten about.
If there’s one barrier to entry, it may be the heavy and frequent usage of in-jokes. Some references may go over new viewers' heads, but if you stick around for a few minutes, the strange nature of what they discover and share will quickly overwhelm any sense of being lost. (If any of the hosts end up reading this, please don’t stop the in-jokes. They’re great, and their mutations are always enjoyably unpredictable.
The Found Footage festival can be found on YouTube, and also have their own site. In addition to everything previously mentioned, they also provide a streaming service called REWIND-O for everything they’ve already put out. If you need to pick just one thing to start with, I recommend checking out this one. If you ever tape traded in the 90s, if you hung around eBaumsworld in the 2000s, or if you want to find a new rabbit hole of absurdities, you owe it to yourself to check these folks out.