I don’t know if this is a good thing or not (probably not), but I may be the only person on the planet with two complete episodes of “The New Adventures of Beans Baxter” on video tape.
Earth-shattering, isn’t it?
A little background first. When Fox (the TV network) started up in April 1987, they only programmed one night of the week, Sunday, with shows like “21 Jump Street” and “Married With Children” (And the only reason I know this (aside from being a nerd) is because I was working at a Fox affiliate in Flint at the time). Later that summer, they expanded to a second night of programming, Saturdays, with four shows lost to the annuls of time—a TV version of the movie “Down & Out in Beverly Hills”, “Karen’s Song”, “Werewolf”, and “Beans Baxter”. None of the shows lasted more than a few months, none of them are remembered fondly by cult audiences (or, more likely, remembered by ANYONE) and none of them certainly deserved to be saved on video, much less two episodes of them in complete form.
Yet, for some strange reason, I did it.
“Beans Baxter” was created by a guy named Savage Steve Holland, best known for being the warped mind behind the John Cusack movie “Better Off Dead”. The show had the same tone as that flick, dealing with a teenager who discovers his kidnapped father was a secret agent, and who goes through tortured comic situations to see if he can help rescue him. As far as I can tell, only one member of the cast ever went on to anything else, and that would be Kirtwood Smith, who played a bad gut on “Beans” and ended up playing the dad on “That 70s Show”. It was cancelled after 20 or so episodes, and I’m sure no one on the planet gave it a second thought.
Now, back to the future. This weekend I was digging though a box filled with old crap when I came across a couple of video tapes from 30 or so years ago (back when people, you know, used video tapes). I had no idea what was on them, so you can imagine my surprise when one of them contained those two complete episodes of “Beans Baxter’, still in surprisingly good condition. I actually remember taping one of them, a mash-up of the movie “Exorcist” with riffs on the “hysteria” whipped by the Parents Music Resource Council over hidden messages in rock music. In fact, Dee Snider, the lead singer of Twisted Sister, played the “exorcist” in the episode, trying to un-brainwash kids who’d been turned to the dark side after listening to the hidden messages in the music of a Pat Boone-type singer. I don’t remember taping the other episode, but considering that I sometimes can’t remember what I had for breakfast the previous morning, I’m not surprised.
Like I said, the episodes were both complete—they contained all the original network commercials and promos from 1987, and watching them was, well, a trip. When I listen to old radio shows from the 30s and 40s, I often enjoy the commercials and promotional announcements better than the show itself. More than the drama or the comedy, the commercials and promos give you a better sense of what life was like back then. And even though they’re only 35 years old, watching the commercials and the promos included in those two episodes of “Beans Baxter” reminded me what it was like back in the fall of 1987. There were commercials for hair products and wine coolers that would probably make the average viewer of today laugh all over their smartphones and energy drinks. Although it may not seem like it in your mind, it sure is amazing how much things have changed over the past third of a century, especially when you’re confronted by hard physical evidence of it on a video tape, a technology itself rendered somewhat obsolete by how much things have changed over the past quarter century.
I’m not quite sure what I’m gonna do with that video tape. After all, while I have no desire to watch those episodes of “Beans Baxter” again, they DO represent a time capsule of sorts. It wouldn’t be right just to get rid of them; after all, there have been times when I wished more old radio shows had been saved, so that people in future generations—like me—would have a chance to listen to them. Maybe, if I ever get around to it, I’ll digitized those two episodes, and save them on a flash drive somewhere. Then in another 35 years, when I’m digging through another box filled with old crap, I can find them once again, watch them once again, and be amazed once again at how they seem to serve as a time capsule holding the secrets of pop culture (and life) from decades long ago.
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