Here’s a recent VHS find, a vintage TV advert from 1988 for the Amplex breath freshener range that for some reason is based around the 1960s adventure series The Avengers. Not sure what the link is between the two but it’s a fun, although brief, watch!
One of the most sought after series of tapes that we’re looking for is the Trailer Epics range, which started back in 1983. There are a few reasons we’re after these tapes so much, firstly the original releases can be up to 3-hours of pure trailers from multiple different distributors, so they’re a goldmine of rare finds. Secondly the early releases were hosted by Nick Wenham (editor of Video Trade Weekly and Popular Video), who would appear on screen and introduce the tapes and any extra features on there, these intros are a great glimpse back into the early days of VHS and are so fun to watch.
The first series of Trailer Epics releases was sponsored by TDK, but recently I found out that SONY became the sponsor from December 1986 when the second series of VHS compilations started up. The tape below turned up on ebay out of the blue, it’s the first new Trailer Epics tape I’ve found in years, sadly Nick isn’t featured on the tape anymore, but it’s still 90-minutes of trailer action and now we have a little bit more info about the series. Also the sleeve to Sony Trailer Epics Volume 2 also turned up on ebay around the same time, so we can get a glimpse of that here as well.
SONY Trailer Epics – Volume 1 – December 1986
Watch the tape in full right here:
The back cover to SONY Trailer Epics Volume 1
SONY Trailer Epics – Volume 2 – January 1987
An finally the four TDK Trailer Epics tapes we have in our collection:
If anyone has any of the Trailer Epics tapes, or if you know anything more about how these came about, then please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!
So let’s wrap up our look back at the early issues of Starburst magazine with this round up of all the interesting things that didn’t fit in anywhere else, starting with this 100% authentic UFO Detector!
Starburst issue 2 – 1978 – The Skywatch UFO Detector
Starburst issue 15 – 1979 – The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy book and vinyl album adverts!
Starburst issue 46 – 1982 – Laser Ray Spex!
Starburst issue 64 – 1983 – Slipstream – I had to look at this for a while before I realised it was actually for an oil lubricant and not actually comic or film related, not sure why the company decided to take the sci-fi route to advertise their oil but it’s fun to see anyway!
So that’s it for Starburst and White Dwarf adverts, hope you enjoyed all of that, we’ll be back with more regular updates soon!
The Video Screen were a regular advertiser in Starburst, they promoted themselves as “The first science-fiction mail order firm” and sold VHS tapes of new releases at a time when more people were into renting them than being able to own them. Here’s a selection of their ads from the magazine. I’ll be picking up a tape of Hawk The Slayer for sure!
Starburst issue 39 – 1981 – The Video Screen 5A Rainsford Road, Chelsmford, Essex
Starburst issue 47 – 1982
Starburst issue 63 – 1983
