202.5 Newsletter

Hey y'all!

I was so excited to open up the vault for the first time this season. It was awesome to be able to reveal American Commandos to you guys. It was such a fun movie, but more on that in a bit.

First up, I have my boxes to share with you from the main episode! All three of the Video Archives boxes were clamshells, but you know me -- I opted for slip covers!

Even though The Love Bug's white Disney clamshell was tempting, I opted for this box because I loved two things about it. One, I really loved the title treatment with the little heart in between the words "love" and "bug", and two -- I loved the box art. Look at how cute Herbie is! And you can't beat Buddy Hackett's expression.

I also like how they put a photo of Walt Disney on the back of the box as if to give his stamp of approval. I actually like this box description better than the clamshell. Herbie really did give me the most laughs per gallon :-) <3

Next up was The Amsterdam Kill which featured Mitchum coming out of a tulip with his barrel pointing straight at you! This box was number 992 at whatever video store it originally belonged to.

I prefer Quentin's box of The Amsterdam Kill -- yes, this is a Good Times tape so it's easy to beat -- but we are able to read the back of the box on this one since it's in English.

Next time that we are missing a back of the box on the show, I'll make sure to include it in the Aftershow for y'all!

And to round out the episode we have Birds of Prey. There are lots of different boxes for this one floating around, but I decided to settle on this one which features Elaine Heilveil running with her bag of cash from the chopper. And, like Walt on the Love Bug box, we have David Janssen mugging on the front to remind you who's boss!

The description on this box is pretty good (since, you know, it's the same as the other box), but darn you Blockbuster for putting your sticker over the description! Who does that! Well at least I know it sold for 4.88 back on February 12th, 1992 -- which was 10 dollars less than what I bought it for.

And that brings us to our vaulted movie on this week's Aftershow. When the guys talked about American Commandos, I actually hadn't seen the movie yet, so I also got a kick out of hearing Roger and Quentin try to remember the description of the film.

Since then I've actually seen the movie twice. Once on film on August 4th, 2022 (hey, that's my brother's birthday!) and once on VHS on January 30th, 2023. We had planned to actually cover American Commandos on the main show, hence me watching it twice, but it fell through the cracks. Thankfully that vaulted conversation existed for us all to enjoy!

This is some of my favorite box art to come out of our show. You get our whole gang of guys. Chris Mitchum looks totally kick butt and ready for revenge while Franco Guerrero is looking sharp in his white suit. We've got helicopters, planes, motorcycles, and that crazy tank car! And yeah, a woman in a cage! What more could you want from an exploitation flick?

It's an interesting still image they chose for the back of the box. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I still love this simplistic design.

There's no homework for next week's Aftershow, all you'll have to do is listen and enjoy! If you guys have any suggestions for what you'd like to see featured in an Aftershow episode, feel free to comment below or pop it in the Aftershow chat in the community tab.

Also, remember that we accept questions for Quentin and Roger to answer via snail mail! We hope one day to do a Patreon Q&A, but for now you'll have to write in. Here's our address:

The Video Archives Podcast
1014 S. Westlake Blvd
Suite #14-1328
Westlake Village, CA 91361

Well, that wraps up this bonus post! Make sure you head on over to the community tab to see if your fellow patrons figured out the clues for episode 3!

-gala <3