Sunday, February 19, 2017

My VHS Purge: Chuck's Choice Cuts





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes:

Chuck's Choice Cuts (1982) As good as this tape is, it's not The All Night Show, the source. Tomorrow, Monday, February 20th, I will be posting an article on "Chuck the Security Guard" and his short-lived late-late night series, so I won't go into any great detail here. The VHS has Chuck, actually Toronto-based actor Chas Lawther, doing the kind of thing he did on TANS: Having some fun in front of the camera and showing an assortment of film shorts such as the Superman and Betty Boob cartoons, music shorts, and old movie trailers. The difference is this production was shot in a tape-house machine room and not in a small television's station control room. Also, the original show was live-to-air, which is quite impossible to do on a pre-recorded videotape. I suppose the best way to mimic The All Night Show experience would be to play this tape starting at 1 o'clock in the morning.

I grabbed Chuck's Choice Cuts in the early 'nineties from After Dark Video on Bathurst Street here in Toronto. The store itself had a fine collection of off-beat videos and a decor to match. (After Dark closed its doors years ago.)

2 comments:

Tibor said...

I remember you talking about this guy. I wish I caught it but I was a bit young to stay up that late back then. I think the time's right for a new security guard!

Simon St. Laurent said...

I agree!