"Flash"-back to 1991...

We all have "bad VCR stories", right?

I have a few. For instance, when I was in high school, I taped the Beatles' "Let It Be" documentary from a rental of an RCA Videodisc (an ancient precursor to dvd's). I loved that movie.

Until I over-taped it with "Another World."

Oops.

That one was just a warmup, though. The story that always stays in my mind as the pinnacle of bad VCR stories is this one:

In 1990, shortly after the Tim Burton "Batman" movie had hit so big, a tv show was created based on another comic book hero... the Flash.

I really liked the show. It was pretty cool.

However, it only lasted one season. Apparently, was very expensive to make, and never really got a big enough audience to justify the cost. As well, towards the end of the show they moved it all around the schedule, so you never really knew when it was coming on. Very irritating.

I remember when the very final episode was being broadcast, in 1991. I had taped many of the episodes, and on the current cassette I was using, there was just enough space for the last one hour show. I wasn't going to be home when it was on, so I trusted the VCR to tape it. Which it did.

The next day, I sit down to watch it. The show starts off great. In it, the Flash gets caught in some kind of explosion where he gets shot about ten or fifteen years into the future. In that time, the bad guy has become mayor, and his city is totally corrupted. Everyone thought the Flash just took off and never returned... it's all very dramatic.

Twenty minutes into the episode, just as it's shaping up to be really good...

CLICK.

WHIRRRRRRRRR.....

Huh?

Why is my tape rewinding?

Oh. No.

The week before, a friend asked me to dub her brother's wedding video. So I changed my VCR to the slowest setting for high quality.

AND I NEVER CHANGED IT BACK.

So, basically, I taped just the first twenty minutes of the very last ever Flash episode instead of the entire hour.

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's just say I wasn't too impressed. I won't say that it scarred me for life, but I must concede that it affected me strongly enough that I'm blogging about it fifteen years later... right?

And, to this day, I still don't know how that episode ended.

However.....

Guess what I just got for my birthday???