Strange Tapes: The Ultimate Pokémon Experience
I wrote this VHS review for Issue #6 of the Strange Tapes zine, available to purchase from Lunchmeat VHS
Becoming A Master: The Ultimate Pokémon Experience
Unauthorized Documentary Two-Tape Set, Brentwood Home Video, 1999
In the late 90s, I like every other kid in elementary school started playing this new card game from Japan called Pokémon. You’d play it during recess, you’d play it after school, it was the big thing! But I soon grew tired of the card game, where you had to draw Energy cards & Pokémon only had one attack, and I instead fell in love with the Pokémon video games. Pokémon Yellow on the Gameboy Color, baby!
However, if only I had gotten this VHS tape at that age, then maybe I’d be a master card player today. Describing Pokémon as “baseball cards meets chess,” this epic two-tape video takes you inside a Pokémon tournament, as the over-enthusiastic host with classic late-90s blonde highlights asks children if Taurus is a good card or not, to which the kids, being kids, reply with incredibly detailed answers about “theme decks” and “card rarity.” Oh, and ex-Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson shows up with his son!
Back in the day, everything half-way famous got its own Unauthorized VHS exclusive, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Harry Potter. The “unauthorized” just meant they didn’t have access to anyone actually important, but I always hoped that they had exclusive secrets & explosive importation. If you’re looking for the E! True Hollywood Story of Pokémon, this isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a 90s time capsule of early computer graphics, backwards baseball caps & Pokémon fandom in its infancy, this is the jackpot.
It’s kind of sad that Pokémon Go will never get its own “unauthorized” VHS exclusive. Sure, these days everything popular has 1000s of YouTube reaction videos, but those don’t have sweet VHS box art, do they? To be fair though, the kid on this box looks pretty bored with holding a glowing Poké Ball. Shout-out to CineFile Video in West LA for still selling VHS tapes!
