Joe Pickett (L) and Nick Prueher, who bring the Found Footage Festival to New World Brewery in Tampa, Florida on March 28, 2024. Credit: c/o Found Footage Festival
We’ve all got old VHS tapes, but very few of us properly celebrate the dusty cartridges and what’s on them. Not filmmakers Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, who’ve been collecting them since 1991 and have more than 11,000.

Pickett, a 12-year-contributor to The Onion, and Prueher, a former “Late Show with David Letterman” writer, co-host YouTube series “VCR Party Live!,” where they did up zany old clips for discussion.

Their Found Footage Festival celebrates a 20th anniversary this year, and tour dates will take it to Europe, but not before four stops in Florida. Expect to see footage from the massive collection along with new finds, then year commentary from the duo.

A press release says that highlights of the new show include:

  • A retrospective of the Magical Rainbow Sponge crafting videos and a tribute to its star, Dee Gruenig
  • A new montage of exercise videos, including a Christian workout called “Believercise” and a tongue aerobics tape called “Oral Aerobics”
  • A mysterious New Age video called “Elimination: The First Step.”
Tickets to the Found Footage Festival happening Thursday, March 28 at New World Brewery in Tampa start at $20.
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This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2024.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...