You Might as Well Face It: You’re Addicted to VHS
This Panasonic VHS deck commercial from 1986 opens up with the Robert Palmer hit Addicted to Love from just a year before in 1985 — also the animated wiggles and zig zags are lifted from the Dire Straits video Money for Nothing (which was also produced in ’85 as well). Although what’s funny about video was that if you were well to do in the 80s you’d be watching MTV on cable which was still a slightly expensive treat back then. Although I would have my friends tape blocks of programming on VHS which I would then replay in my lower budget household.
While VHS decks were lower budget items, camcorders were a bit more pricey. The quality was crude, but good enough to kill what was left of the analog film market at that point. In fact in the 80s if you wanted a hip look for your music video you’d shoot it on Super 8mm film, which even then was getting hard to get. The Panasonic spot below showcases this technology which by this point had been round for a few years and was starting to slowly come down in price:
Missing from this 80s multimedia setup? Video editing! That was still the domain of professionals at this point, although it didn’t stop fans of that era from doing crude deck to deck edits. So in some ways I’d never go back to the “good old days”. Although I do miss Robert Palmer…