Why is Phyllis so excited? Perhaps because it’s time for another broadcast from The Museum of Home Video, a found-footage channel dedicated to unearthing the strangest possible video ephemera for its audience of “stoners, seekers, archivists and drinkers.” Over the last year, the channel’s hosts have aired everything from Angela Lansbury’s Positive Moves workout tape to an entire bat mitzvah, interspersed with the best of local news, public access, cursed commercials, CHiPs freeze-frame supercuts, Richard Lewis’ BoKu adult juice box ads, Carol Channing, and much, much more.
The channel’s eponymous, flagship show, which broadcasts on Twitch every Tuesday at 7:30 pm PST, is hosted by channel creator Bret Berg, a film programmer, archivist, and longtime employee of West Los Angeles’ cult video store Cinefile Video. Initially conceived as a way to display Berg’s own extensive collection, the channel has expanded to include a host of specialty shows. K.J. Relth-Miller of the UCLA Film and Television Archive examines the city of Los Angeles through archival film on L.A. Daze; The International Voice of Reason (whose long-running show on beloved L.A. college radio station KXLU is a pinnacle of weirdness in an otherwise homogenous radio landscape) takes viewers on a frantic journey through the strangest and horniest music videos of the 80s, 90s… and today! on MUSICVIDEODROME; screenwriter and movie critic Josh “Worm” Miller explores the world of horror movies on Friday Night Frights (an extension of his Los Angeles screening series, now resurrected IRL at the Los Feliz 3 Theatre); and Alamo Drafthouse film programmers Zack Carlson (co-author of the punk cinema guide Destroy All Movies!) and Laird Jimenez host ¡DEATHBLADE!, a celebration of ludicrous action cinema.
Fascinating as the material is, the magic is in the chat, where an inclusive and welcoming community of film and culture buffs provides a stream of real-time commentary to the broadcast, benevolently moderated by channel producer Jenny Nixon. So tune in, have a nice white-grape-raspberry BoKu — we’re adults, we can choose — and enjoy some pirate television for the soul.