You Taped Over What?!

Words that made you shiver

You Tapes Over What?
Words that made you shiver

A work of BITS.

There were a few phrases that scared a kid straight in the 80's and 90's. "Buckle up, it's the law" (very scary voice right before Ghostbusters on Saturday mornings), "Where's your homework?", and "You taped over what?!" The summary of the article says it all. Those words still send shivers down my spine. I wish I could tell you that I made this mistake once, and quite honestly, looking back on the wrath of my parents, it astonishes me that I made this mistake so many times.

This article is something that any 80's or 90's kid can relate to, because we ALL did it. The following is a series of short stories consisting of crime, punishment, lies, and deceit. Kids nowadays don't need to deal with this stress. The worst they have it might be, "You erased what off the DVR?!", but that doesn't at all sound intimidating.

Now by this point in time, you have all come to know me fairly well. I had a little mischief in the day, but nothing too serious. Like any other kid, I found trouble from time to time, but it wasn't ever THAT bad. You also know me as a pop culture and media geek. Now you might think that I've only been so savvy in that realm as an adult, but the truth is, I've always been like that. I've wanted every movie, every TV show, every everything.

I was one of those kids who would see something on TV and if I liked it and didn't have it on tape, I would grab a tape and hit record. Oddly enough, I never recorded over any of my own materials. With all do respect, I always pulled that tab on the tape to make sure it never got erased. Unfortunately, no one else in my family thought to do this.

The first time I did this was in 1990. My brother and I were watching Sesame Street when they starter performing a song that I liked. I had to have it. So being 4 years old and not knowing any better, I press record on the VCR. A few minutes later, my mom comes upstairs with the laundry and asks what we were doing. "I'm recordin' Elmo, Ma!" A frantic mother rushes to the VCR to hit stop. As it turns out, my mom and dad had decided the night before, to relive a fond memory from 1989 called Christmas Day.

I got a Ghostbuster Firehouse, a Proton Pack, an Ecto 1, and a Nintendo. It's a good thing that I still have those toys, because I have no other record of it, not in it's entirety at least. My mother was angry, my father was heartbroken, and my brother was crying because people were yelling. Me? Well, I didn't say much aside from sorry, but that didn't stop me from being punished. I went for an eternity without being allowed to touch a tape, although let's be real, it couldn't have been more than a week or two. Still, you would think that by this point, I would have learned my lesson right?

Ha! Wrong. Another holiday casualty: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, taped off of CBS. Even worse... it's still 1990. For a kid who was smart by the books, I wasn't so bright when it came to common sense. Good ol' Rudy...well I decided I'd rather watch Underdog. Remember when Nick started rerunning the show? So do I, since I have a record of it! Again, stupid me throws a tape in without looking at it, and I hit record.

The show ends, and I'm all proud to have another addition to my collection. I rewind it and eject it. When I grab the tape, I look at the label. Now keep in mind as a 4 year old, I didn't know how to read, but I knew association. I knew it was Rudolph because I recognized the design of the sticker on the tape. Holy crap, I've done it again. Now there's no way I can fess up to this one. My parents will kill me!

I start thinking of how I can destroy the evidence. I thought about dropping it down the stairs and saying, "I tripped". I thought about leaving it in the car and letting it warp. I thought about tossing it down the storm drain in front of the house (literally). I even thought of telling my parents that a robber came, but all he took was Rudolph (again, seriously). Tripping was out because the VCR was in the living room, as were the tapes, so where was I going with it? The storm drain was out because I couldn't cross the street by myself. Warping it was a bad idea, because why would the tape be in the car? And in the summer no less. The staged robbery was out because, let's be real, that's just too insane.

Instead, I come up with the simplest of the simple minded ideas: Every time my parents ask me if I want to watch it, I say no. Every time, I had another excuse why. Somehow, it actually worked. I avoided watching this tape for years. 6 years later, my dad tells me he wants to record a Honeymooners Holiday special from the 50's. I grab the Rudolph tape and say, "Here Dad, we don't watch this one anymore." 21 years later, no one is wiser to what I did. My dad got his show and I replaced Rudolph on DVD (it still bothered me til this year).

Was it dishonest? I guess, but a kid's gotta do what a kid's gotta do. Now there are two more stories that also haunt me to this day. Keep in mind, as a dumb little kid, I erased a lot of tapes for nonsense, but for the most part, they weren't irreplaceable. The Christmas tape was irreplaceable, and so were the following two. The first being my dad's Superman tape. Now I'm not talking about the horrendous Superman films with Christopher Reeves. I'm talking about the original George Reeves Superman TV Show from the 50's.

My old man loved the Man of Steel. One night, I think it was either Nick At Nite or Turner Classic Movies, decided to do a one night marathon of the television series. My dad taped for hours and hours. I don't think this tape lasted a week before I came along and wrecked it. It was the first time I ever saw my dad upset. I was 5 years old. Now I had seen him, furious, mad, and angry, but never upset. I remember the guilt I had. The endless pit feeling in my chest.

I knew how badly I had messed up. The worst part is, I can't tell you what I recorded; it meant that little to me. Superman didn't return to TV, and my dad didn't have his tape. About four years ago, they released Superman on DVD. I made sure I got them for my dad. Nearly 15 years (at that point in time) later, and I still felt horrible...You want to know the biggest kick in the ass? He never watches them...

The final one I'm embarrassed to saw happened when I was about 17 years old. Yeah, I screwed this one up all the way to full time DVD. It was my 10th birthday party. I had it at an indoor baseball facility made to look like a stadium. It was a great place for a sports freak like me. I hit the walk off single to win the game, and I was carried off the field. I blew out my candles and opened my presents. It was a good day. Pop that tape in now. You know what you get? Behind The Music: Weird Al... I'm not kidding.

Now I don't at all feel bad about this one. I set the VCR to tape while I was at work. I had a blank tape in the VCR. My dad, as his does, decides to relive a happy memory, rewinds the damn tape, and leaves it in the player. He couldn't have just let it stop at the end right? Then we both would have been happy. Well, he isn't sad about it because he never knew it happened. Oh well, the deceit continues into my 20's.

Thanks for checking out my latest work. It's a different kind of piece for me. It isn't as retro as I usually get, which isn't always a bad thing. I figured that this was something we all could relate to. And yes, it is retro technology. This being retro junk, a place for reminiscing and trading stories, I thought it still fit the mold of the site.

My next piece, completely retro: Free With Proof of Purchase...coming soon to a Retro Junk near you.

Later Retro Junkies.

Previous Work:
Remember When...
SNICK Premiered- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6707/
Ecto Cooler- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6749/
Summer Vacation- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6930/
Back To School- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/7058/
The Video Store- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/7584/

Misc.
Wrestlemania 10- I was There- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6649/
Home Made Toys- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6717/
The Born In The 80s Retro Menu- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/6958/
What Retro Junk Means To Me- http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/7047/

Comments

I remember when I got home my first day of second grade, I remember my mom taped game show reruns off of USA for me. Mom taped Press Your Luck and Scrabble for me, and right in the middle of a Scrabble Sprint, an episode of Guiding Light came on! Turns out my ex-stepdad watched Guiding Light religiously every day.

As a teenager in the late 80's/early 90's, I got lucky and found an old top loader VHS at the thrift store, the kind that where built like tanks, so I did not have to use the main vcr in the living room. I used it to record many shows that would only interest me at the time, but that did not guarantee the safety of my recordings. So many times, my dear mother would be needing a tape to record her soap operas, so she would go into my room while I was in school and just tape over anything. The worst losses where shows that are not available anywhere now, such as the entire two seasons of Sk8 TV, Many episodes of Nintendo Power, countless episodes of MST3k, the entire first season of War of the Worlds, the series.

kelv let it go

^retrotyrone1989...

How did your tapes get destroyed? Flood? Fire?

hey, 8 bit, you can thank boomerang for coming along in the first place, i just saw that movie a few weeks ago. now, as for me, our family was even, i accidently taped over family shows, and they did me like that too. most, were not big a deal. what was the bigger deal, was when they were destroyed. if i still had them today, i'd try and save to the hard drive. and, to the person who used to record songs off the radio, i did something simmilar. when traveling the US, i'd always take the radio, and record airchecks of stations i come across. there were a few good ones too, like oldies 103.5, WGRR in cincinnati, was a really big one, because they not only had great personallities, but the jingles to match! it was like radio in the 60's and 70's, because it was an oldies format. i got some good checks, because I was trapped in the airport with family. it was on the way home from gary, IN. however, it got destroyed, which i was crushed! not only did it have that, it had other checks from ohio cities.

someone taped over my tmnt cartoons

my sister taped over my alf christmas special when i was younger, never got over that.....

And, sorry for the double post but I can't edit my comment, just to make it clear, when I taped over our home movie tape I only taped over half of one of my soccer games. Everything else was just fine. And hence why I said I don't care for looking back on them.

This article really hits close to home and brings back a lot of memories.
The only time I accidentally taped over anything important for the family is when I was once taping an episode of Batman: The Animated Series (Feat of Clay, pt. 2) We had been copying our home movie tape to send my grandparents since they lived up in Alaska I forgot that and still believed my previous tape was in there which I'd used to record pt. 1, so I wound up taping over roughly half of it.

Although honestly, considering the fact that we never won a single game I never really cared for looking back on those games anyway.

Though most of my own childhood recordings are intact, there are a few I've come to regret taping over in the last few years after realizing those good old days won't be coming back. Mostly it was because I was young and naive in those days. One tape that had both the Reluctant Dragon and the Sword and the Stone taped off the Disney Channel was replaced with numerous episodes of Power Rangers and X-Men (said movies have since been replaced on DVD). The Making of Dick Tracy was lost for episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men. Some full '90 and '91 episodes of the Disney Afternoon were later taped over for some '92-93 Fox Kids cartoons (one of which was later taped over again for Futurama). An entire Saturday morning's worth of cartoons in 1992 and featuring the pilots of some shows like Eek! the Cat all for some crappy Christmas specials. And when I was really desperate for a tape to catch the then brand new Spider-Man: The Animated Series I sacrificed a tape full of pre-syndication Darkwing Duck episodes that aired on the Disney Channel, complete with its original opening. Thank god I still had another with the original Disney Channel pilot in its entirety.

My mom and I also wound up taping episodes from that George Reeves Superman marathon (it did indeed air on Nick at Nite). That was taped over for Disney Channel airings of Bedknobs and Broomsticks (which I still need to pick up a DVD of) and the Shaggy Dog, which was in turn taped over for Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island and the Flintstones' New Neighbors in addition to some cartoon line-ups like Ducktales and Tiny Toon Adventures. Taped copies of all the old Star Wars movies (including the original off the Disney Chanel in '89) were taped over in the late 90's, but only after we bought the originals on VHS in wide-screen format. Still, I do kinda miss Empire and Jedi having an announcer for NBC talking about the next episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air over the end credits.

I also taped over some of the Roots of Goofy (since it apparently most of it had been taped over for that Jim Henson's nursery rhymes and tales that aired on Disney Channel in the early 90's) and the animated version of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for early 90's episodes of Ninja Turtles and Tiny Toon Adventures before the former moved to CBS for Saturday mornings and the latter moved to Fox Kids, but because those are so hard to find now before those eras, plus considering the commercials were all left intact for them, that one actually doesn't upset me too much. Plus my favorite part of it, the Hunting Instinct special that was from an episode of the Walt Disney Presents series, was left intact.

And speaking of the "horrendous Superman movies with Christopher Reeve" one of the 1980's tapes I still have available is a copy that has Superman II taped of CBS as part of its Homecoming Weekend in 1989, though despite the fact that its notable for having a ton of cuts both to the film and the opening credits (this version has no flashbacks to the previous film) I kind of wish I had taped over that one over one of the ones previously mentioned above.

Nothing important never really got recorded over in my household. The only thing I can recall is a few years back I dug out a bunch of old VHS's and found a couple of episodes of TMNT had been recorded over with some generic action flick. But they were episodes from the last few seasons were they got all "dark" and boring, so I wasn't crushed.

" The final one I'm embarrassed to saw happened when I was about 17 years old. Yeah, I screwed this one up all the way to full time DVD. It was my 10th birthday party. I had it at an indoor baseball facility made to look like a stadium. "

Dude were you 10 or 17?

I had this happen to me more than once. I have memories of 1987 and it would cut-off to a commercial or a Soap Opera. Luckily it was less than 30 seconds, but TV Specials I did that too, but luckily with the ethers of YouTube I can see these shows again.

What was worse was when my sister spilled pop on 1/2 of the tapes I had and some of the things were replaceable, but "Easter 1987" when I was at my grandma and grandpa's house wasn't! Also in 1995, someone (I don't know who) taped over a tape that had stuff on Easter Weekend, TGIF with "Family Matters-Fast Eddie Winslow", "Perfect Strangers-The Ring", and "Baby Talk". Then I had a few SatAM Cartoons on it.

Now, I got most of the shows of my childhood...and more. I also remove the tabs on every tape I have once I'm done with the tape.

I still have a stack of VHS tapes from my youth filled with Saturday morning cartoons, but some of them were recorded over by my Mom with old episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show and network news broadcasts. I used to be upset by this, but now as an adult I can appreciate the bits of history that replaced my beloved cartoons.

Like my Mom recorded 2 hours of news broadcasts right after the Challenger space shuttle explosion, it was amazing to see how that incident really touched the nation at the time and to see how the grief united people.

Awesome article! I remember the days when my mom would flip out over stuff I recorded over - one of my favorite memories was watching my siblings get in trouble for recording soft-core cinemax movies... thank God for DVD.

My Mom was seriously pissed,when I accidentally erased her tape with the"Friends"episode where Ross and Rachael first kiss.She loved that episode,and I accidentally recorded WCW wrestling over it. Thank God for reruns,I was able to rerecord it.I don't miss VCRS at all,I'm glad we have DVR and DVDS.

Who taped over my shows was a HUGE ongoing debate in my house, almost to the point of a spite war lol.

I HATED the VCR for this reason LOL until I got my own. ALSO I used to LOCK all my tapes in a box with a lock so no one could steal them to tape things lol.

I used to do that a lot for some shows when I was around 9 or so, and now I wish I hadn't.

I used to tape A LOT when I was a kid. Every show I watched, I wanted to tape it in case it was so good that I had to have it for later. Once in a while this got me in trouble. One time my older brother, who was a huge Nirvana fan, came home from a bad day and popped in his recording of their Unplugged session. He came back out of his room and told me the tape had King of the Hill on it. I felt bad about that for years, and was really glad I could replace it on DVD later on.

Another time, one of my best friends borrowed me a tape because he thought I'd like what was on it. I misunderstood and thought he was giving me the tape, so when I didn't really care for what was on it, I decided to use the tape for recording. Needless to say, he was a little peeved when he came to take it back.

I've been the victim, too, though. I have at least two WWF pay-per-views that are missing their second halves due to nonsense being recorded over them. That irritated me a little more because I had to pay for that stuff.

Great article, by the way.

I can't recall any specific stories of taping over something of my parents, although I'm sure it happened. But what about when the shoe was on the other foot? I remember when I was about 5 years old I had The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones recorded on a VHS. I watched it over and over. Just loved it. Then one day my Dad accidentally taped over it. I was crushed. I can still remember how upset I was over this. To a 5 year old kid this is a much bigger deal than it should be. "It'll come on again." "We'll get you another one." I didn't wanna hear it!!! Haha. In retrospect, I feel sorry for my Dad because I'm sure he felt really bad about it.

I still use VHS to record sometimes and I always break the little tab out of the front of the tape so it can't be erased. I have a VCR/DVD Recorder combo that can record VHS or DVD.

This did happen to me when I was 4 years old in 1989. Hard to believe I even knew how to use a VCR at that age. I remember taking one of my dad's tapes, which turns out to be movies that was taped on KTLA and somehow, I taped "The Wonderful World of Disney" on KTTV, just for the "Happy Birthday Donald" special. After he watched this tape, he was furious! So, he punished me for about 3 days. Had a bad experience, but sometimes I do that to some of my VHS tapes when I first had a VCR.

When I was a teenager in the late 1970's/early 1980's, I loved recording my favorite songs onto (audio) cassettes off the radio and records, many times taping over something I've previously recorded, especially if I didn't have any blank tapes. There was one evening when I recorded my dad being "goofy" and imitating a little kid on an Easter candy commercial and then later I accidentally taped over it, regretting it big time, since he wouldn't let me record him again (imitating the Easter commercial) after I told him I accidentally taped over him.

Gotta love the current age of DVD's and Bluray's for this sort of thing...lol However, I do remember for years taping movies off the TV with the VCR was the only way to get movies you liked on the cheap.

Haha, I never touched the VCR as a kid. But there were most certainly incidents of foul play. I remember sitting down with family watching a tape of some movie I can't recall, but I remember us getting about half way into it and it goes to being some gameshow, haha. It's cool though to record old tv programs. Watching them with the old commercials is quite the experience. My sister had a copy of The Never Ending Story recorded from the mid 90s. It was amazing, the commercial breaks really made it enjoyable.

Great job Bits! You definitely have a knack for conjuring up personal memories in people, as evidence by the great comments! Can't wait for the next piece, I love the title already!

Reminds me of the time when my brother said that he taped over my POWERPUFF GIRLS episodes. I freaked, and later after checking, I found out that he was joshing me in a freaky manner.
LOL!
What? I like that show.

@Caps 2.0,

Up until January, I worked in a small photo printing lab (went out of business). One of our services was transfering VHS and other types of tapes to DVD. Either find a shop that does it or take mysticwryter's advice and find a VHS to DVD dual recorder. Or if you have AV cables, do it directly to a PC hard drive

And I've seen many of this doing these transfers. People think they are transferring a family gathering or a special occasion and all of a sudden, there's 900 number ads from the Spice Network leading into full on hardcore movies, lol.

That's why whenever I would video tape anything (my cousin and I loved taping segments of sketch comedy shows like SNL, Mad TV) I'd hide that s@@t so no one can tape over it

This happened on occasion in my house. The most upsetting one was when my brother taped over a video of me with my godfather (who was a player for the Redskins back in the 90s. No joke.) with some shit from the Science Channel. I didn't know until I tried to show it to my friends as proof. My brother also taped over some retro gold from the 90s with nothing at all, which ticked me off also.

I only ever taped over a music video my sister recorded off MTV with an episode of the cramp twins but she never found out (the vhs tape starts with the music vide because I didn't know how to like it up properly) I still use vhs (its cheeper at 50p to Â£2 per tape)

@ Caps 2.0; I think there's a way to do so...and I think it involves a dvd/vhs dual set? Where you can transfer the audio and visual from VHS to DVD.

If it's possible to get the memories of your mom and dad on DVD, get it to a computer and save it to a external hard drive; that way you will always have it.

I know about stuff like this, although thankfully I never taped over videos of family. I don't know how much longer the tapes will work, though. I don't know how to transfer them to DVD, and once they're gone, so is all proof of what my Dad and Mom (both deceased now) sounded like.

HA! I've taped over many different shows my mom had on VHS with other shows. I even taped part of Rocko's Modern Life over my mom's The Young and the Restless. I just threw it behind my house and let a train run over it. No one knew.