A clean cut looking young man, in what can only be described as a Cosby sweater and crisp khaki pants, sits in an armchair, stares directly into the camera and with a shrug and a sincere smile, explains: “I’m Sam.  And basically, I’m here because…I want to be your friend!”

So begins Rent-a Friend, one of the most memorable features of the Found Footage Festival, a weird and wonderfully hilarious touring show in which the creators, Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett show unintentionally entertaining videos from the 80s and 90s.  Prueher and Pickett scour thrift stores and garage sales around the country looking for comedic gems hidden in spindles of VHS tape.

On a balmy Wednesday night in downtown Raleigh, N.C., people are beginning to stream into the Rialto Theater in the hopes of watching some truly terrible videotape.

The atmosphere is casual and laid back. Pickett can be seen milling about the lobby before the show. About 200 people eventually take a seat in the 1942-era restored cinema. The crowd is mostly hip 20-somethings and summer college students from the nearby North Carolina State University, sprinkled with a smattering of middle-aged couples.

The show began with a 25th anniversary screening of a short documentary film entitled Heavy Metal Parking Lot, filmed in — you guessed it — the parking lot at a 1986 Judas Priest concert. Drunken young men and women, with big hair and tight jeans, can be seen staggering about, screaming accolades to the band and generally making a spectacle in front of the camera. A scene in which a youth, clad in a zebra-print bodysuit, delivers a vicious screed against Madonna gets particularly big laughs. This is an excellent primer for the footage that follows.

The next video, Petpourri, opens with a clean cut looking young man standing behind a rectangular counter smaller than most kitchen tables. Every inch of the table is covered with a perplexing variety of live animals. A cocker spaniel puppy sits behind a box holding a turtle, a chinchilla and a hamster.  To his right are two glass terraria containing more turtles and an iguana. To his left sits a box of indeterminate mammals. A dog saunters past on the floor. Large cockatiels perch on top of the boxes. The program, taken from a long-cancelled pet advice call-in show that aired on Long Island public television, is utter chaos as host Marc Marrone answers questions about dog poop and proper hamster selection. The dog chews on the turtle’s head, while other animals jump to the floor to escape the pandemonium of the table. It is impeccably edited, pure comedic joy to watch.

The show continues with finds like Dr. Rocco’s Better Love Making through Hypnosis, Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit, and Bowling for Women Only.

Though many of these clips will eventually make it to the Found Footage web site, Prueher and Pickett strongly believe that there is something special about watching their work in a group.

“Live is the right format to share videos.  Everything becomes funnier.  You’re watching stuff on a big screen that was never intended to be seen that way,” Nick Prueher said.

In fact, the show started out when young Nick Prueher took a job working at McDonald’s and had to watch a particularly painful training video called Inside and Outside Custodial Duties. After he shared the video with friends, he and Joe Pickett, his friend since 6th grade, began gathering more “strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid” VHS tapes and sharing them with friends. In 1991, after thousands of hours of video, they distilled 90-minutes of their favorites and dubbed it the Found Footage Festival.

When the pair began, VHS was the standard format for personal use of recorded film and television. Now, however, those tapes are going the way of the 8-track and wax cylinder.

“It’s hard to know there are videos out there being thrown away,” Prueher said.  “We think about that more and more.”

The crunch is on for the festival to find the best clips sooner rather than later, especially since the format deteriorates after 25 years or so.

Prueher and Pickett will be sad to see it go. “Some people like vinyl, with all the pops and scratches.” Prueher said.  “For us, it’s the same. We love the washed out colors of VHS.”

In the 80s and 90s, consumers were watching video in their homes for the first time. Video productions were also relatively affordable to produce. Prueher explained that this new technology allowed “anybody with a few bucks and an idea” to make a program for VHS. Some of the more interesting of those ideas wind up as festival fodder.

While Pickett and Prueher have been surprised at how universal stupid videos are, there are some regional differences. There is a surfeit of religious videos in the South, a glut of “crappy indy films” in Southern California and an abundance of outdoor survivalist tutorials from the Pacific Northwest. New York is famous for its great public access television, whence came Petpourri.

During tours, the co-founders perform the same show several times a week for months at a time. “We do get sick of some of them,” Prueher said of the videos. But new audiences every night keep their “show and tell” fresh. “The funnest part is finding a video like Rent-a-Friend and thinking ‘The world needs to see this!’”

And do they get sick of each other on tour? Prueher says that no one knows him better than Pickett, and thus, no one knows better how to irritate him.

“I’ve never laughed harder than being on the road together,” he said.

In July, the festival will wrap up its nine-month tour, and begin preparing for next year’s show. That means they are on the hunt for footage again. “We always encourage people to submit,” Prueher said.

Many viewers drop off videos after a live show. The duo also receives packages of VHS tapes in the mail. “It’s like Christmas morning,” Prueher said.  “Every time we get one, we just can’t wait to unwrap it.”

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