When we last spoke with Nick Prueher of the Found Footage Festival, he and fellow comedian-rummager Joe Pickett were gearing up for their first-ever visit to Dallas with their show, a live presentation of confounding 20-year-old workout videos, public access shows and ill-advised celebrity advice tapes.
Some scars from that first show are never going to heal (thanks, bath-tub scene from Angela Lansbury's workout video), but Pickett and Prueher return to the Lakewood Theater with a new show tonight, morbid curiosity will have me crawling right back.
Yesterday Prueher told Unfair Park the new show includes highlights from VHS-finding missions during that tour back in May, including the surefire party hit Pornography: Every Man's Battle, plucked right off the shelf of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store at Northwest Highway and Webb Chapel Road.
More of Prueher's advice on thrifting for vintage weirdness, and on what to expect from tonight's 8 p.m. show -- and the greatest Dallas-based find of all -- after the jump.
Tonight's show also includes highlights from a tape given to Prueher and Pickett by none other than David Cross, who made his own appearance at the Lakewood last Friday. This one's a tape for a video dating service out of Fresno from 1987. "If you're judging from the tape, it was a time when nobody was attractive," Prueher says. Beyond the bad sweaters most of the suitors wear, one guy tries to stand out by dressing as a viking.
Prueher and Pickett made it to three Dallas thrift stores in their visit earlier this year, which impressed Prueher as a market for religious shows in particular.
While the St. Vincent de Paul on Northwest Highway did net them the self-help tape mentioned above, Pruher says he was far more impressed by Grand Prairie's Trader's Village. "The East Coast has nothing on Texas when it comes to flea markets," Prueher says. He remembers picking up a dusty satin Young and the Restless jacket, but found there wasn't nearly as much in the way of vintage tapes. "We picked up a few old wrestling videos, but nothing else."
The Oak Cliff Salvation Army on Jefferson Boulevard, though, netted the team a 12-tape series called "Bible Truths for Children," he says. "Like a lot of religious kids' videos, it involves puppets, which have a tendency to be very creepy." The strength of the Salvation Army in any city, Prueher says, is that they don't screen videos as strictly as other chain thrift stores. "Goodwill, you're pretty much only going to find exercise videos and Jerry Maguire," he says. "Salvation Army doesn't have those same standards, so we find a lot of weird stuff there.
Perhaps Dallas's greatest contribution, though, is two-time public access televangelist Jonathan Bell, the Canadian hairdresser who said he heard a call to come preach to North Texas. On the next page, hear more from Prueher on the angriest preacher on public access, and some harsh words from Bell for sinners, and the Dallas Police Department."This one was sent in by a guy from Denver, who didn't explain how he got it. He just said, 'this is the greatest public access show you'll ever see. Only two episodes were ever recorded.'" Depending on where you work, you may want to turn down your speakers before playing this one:
