Promo Spots of the Gods

Wow -- here's an interesting little archaeological curio. From 1988, it's John Waters urging the troops to get out there and support the movie that became his mainstream breakthrough. Doesn't he look respectable?

In case you're wondering where that came from, it was made for MCA Home Video, who used to do a monthly promo tape (on VHS -- remember that?) hawking their upcoming releases. The tapes would be sent out to video stores and reviewers (I used to audition them while toiling at the fondly remembered Video Review magazine) and the series -- I still have one or two volumes in storage somewhere -- was called The Reel Thing (hah!). Most of the clips were just your average music videos and movie trailers, but occasionally there would be something sui generis like that Waters Hairspray piece.

Obviously, the whole thing was designed to be somewhat ephemeral, but it's nice that the above has been rescued from the proverbial dustbin of history, I think.