Only in the 1980s could Vincent Price sit in a creepy castle and convince us to buy blank VHS tapes by telling us he wanted to clean our heads.
This 1985 commercial was for Polaroid videocassettes, and the funny thing is they weren’t advertising a separate VCR head cleaner.
Polaroid actually claimed its regular videotapes helped keep your VCR heads clean while you played them.
Remember when dirty VCR heads were actually something we worried about?
Using Vincent Price was perfect casting. Just a couple of years earlier, millions of younger viewers had heard that unmistakable voice at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Price recorded that famous narration in only two takes.
And 1985 was also the year he became Vincent Van Ghoul on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
What I always find interesting about Vincent Price is how much more there was to him than horror movies. He studied art history, became a serious art collector and helped build the collection that eventually became the Vincent Price Art Museum.
He even spent years helping Sears select original artwork that ordinary customers could buy in their stores.
Price was also a gourmet cook and co-wrote A Treasury of Great Recipes with his wife Mary.
But put him in an old castle, light a few candles and let that voice loose, and suddenly even a blank VHS tape became creepy.
And apparently it cleaned your head, too.
Do you remember Polaroid selling VHS tapes?
#VincentPrice #Polaroid #VHS #VHSTapes #VCR #1980s #1985 #VintageCommercials #RetroCommercials #ClassicHorror #Thriller #MichaelJackson #1980sNostalgia #HomeVideo #TheRetroSite
Only Vincent Price Could Make a VHS Tape Sound Terrifying
