YouTube: The New Repository of Old and Forgotten Television

Have you ever had one of those nostalgic moments where an old obscure commercial, a network TV promo bumper or other little miscellaneous detail you remember from old television pops back into your conscious mind? Maybe some people have different abilities to remember from others--but I know a lot of people (growing up in an arguably better era of TV and movies) who sometimes get a desire to want to see those little details from TV past, but just have no idea where to go to try to see them again. Outside of a few websites that provide videos of some interesting classic TV, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Youtube for even more detail--as much as that site gives more immediate unwanted images of waste-of-space videos showing people screaming to leave Britney alone or thinking images of throwing a Frisbee for their dog or doing 101 impressions of celebrities will captivate the world (and perplexingly do).

You'll only be immersed in that above mundane crapola if you pay attention to the main page and the Top 50 videos of the day. If you use the search feature to hunt for obscure videos from TV yesteryear--you'll happily discover something unique about Youtube lately: It's now become the new comprehensive Television Historical Museum. And there's no fee to have the opportunity to go back.

I consider myself lucky enough to have grown up in the 70's and 80's when TV and movies were in their last years of being considered in a classic age. A lot of TV from the 70's and 80's left indelible images on my mind that incite a "Yep, I remember that!" type of moment the minute I see a video of those minutely detailed video bits. The good news, too, is that some people in America had the early prototype of the VCR (back when it was nearly as big as a small suitcase and used BETA tapes) to record some of those things for possible posterity or some other reason even they likely don't remember. That's why if you go searching for videos of old 70's TV commercials on Youtube--you'll likely only find videos of ones going back to 1972 or so when the home-based VCR was just being test-sold to those with big pockets.