Sven Addendum

Yesterday at work, I put in overtime (for the second day in a row) and developed a massive headache toeing the border of a migraine (also for the second day in a row). And by the time I left work? It was raining. Sideways.

By the time I got back to La Casa del Terror, I was soaking wet--yes, I had an umbrella, but it had little effect on the driving rain--and Charlie Watts, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr were all pounding the same steady beat in my aching skull. (Bonzo Bonham may have been in there as well, for all I know.) In short, I was pretty miserable and wanted little more than a bite to eat and a few minutes of productive peace while looking through old videotapes in order to figure out just what the hell I have.

I'd taped a lot of movies off of Turner Classic Movies, especially silent movies (which, thank goodness, they show fairly often), and many of the older tapes included episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Lost World (mmm, Jennifer O'Dell). Some of the programs were taped for one-time viewing and then forgotten about (like when Oprah ripped James Frey a new one for making up large parts of his "memoir"), while other programs were taped for historical purposes (like the last episode of Bozo's Circus, the longest running show in the history of children's television).

On the last tape I checked, though, I found something that I not only do not remember taping, but that I was thrilled to have at all: The very first "Svengoolie" show on WCIU. The movie that day, January 7, 1995, was C.H.U.D., a low-grade horror flick about cannibal mutations living under the streets of New York. Rich Koz started the show by popping open the coffin, explaining that he used to be known as "Son of Svengoolie" (but now was all grown up) and being buffeted with rubber chickens after making an awful joke (nothing new there).

These first couple of minutes are noticeable different from the way the show looks today. The set decoration was minimal--not that it's a Cecil B. DeMille production now, but at least the set has actual wall, instead of black curtains behind the coffin taking the place of walls. Also, the studio assistants on that first broadcast actually ran out of rubber chickens to toss, something that would never happen today (because one of the show's sponsors provides the chickens, there is a much larger supply than when Koz was buying them himself).

There was also another hidden treasure on this tape: A couple of minutes of footage of Koz's very first appearance on WCIU a week earlier, when the station switched from ethnic and business programming to more standard entertainment programming. The station formally switched over as 1994 became 1995, but it ran a brief "preview" of upcoming programming (mostly sitcom reruns, plus the aforementioned Svengoolie) hosted by Koz in full Sven costume; the videotape captures those first moments of Koz introducing an episode of Leave It to Beaver.

the videotape in question is not in the best of shape--it is, after all, nearly 15 years old. Also, my videotaping skills weren't quite as sharp then as they are today--the end credits of the Svengoolie episode were clipped off by whatever I taped after that. But the next opportunity I get, I will have a friend burn the contents of that tape onto a DVD. It's local TV history. It should be preserved.

It's also personal history: that program was recorded while I was still living in the small second-floor apartment in my parents' house. It was recorded while Dad was still alive. That makes the tape more special than it would have already been.

And? I found the tape on the anniversary of both Rich Koz's Sven premiere and Dad's passing.