Public Domain Highlights: Amvest Video

Let's get all comfy and cozy.  Actually, let's rather not.  The next public domain video company to highlight is a very notorious one called Amvest Video.

Amvest Video was actually Audiofidelity records.  They have released numerous records over the years, but most of them bootlegged.   There were two lines in the Amvest video department which was formed in the late 80's: Grampa and Kid Pics

Grampa's videos were mostly Halloween tapes such as horror flicks, trailers, and cartoons.  It was hosted by Al Lewis who played Grandpa Munster.  Noticed the series was called GRAMPA, not GRANDPA in order to get away from a potential lawsuit against Universal.  Grampa's Scary Stories and Silly Scaries featured public domain cartoons that were themed Halloween.  So you get Casper the Ghost, Popeye the Sailor, and many others.  Surprisingly, The Raven, which was never a public domain cartoon, made it to the cut on one of these tapes.  However, like most of these cartoons, it was faded red 16mm prints.  Sometimes Grampa's make up would look....bleh......

While Grampa's tapes were more Halloween themed, the scariest series of tapes has to be the Kid Pics.  Why?  I explain in grave detail on a previous post of mine, but there was this group to cash in on Alvin and the Chipmunks' renewed popularity called The Happy Hamsters.  They mostly sang Michael Jackson songs and Ghostbusters.  It failed.  Read it all here
In 1988, The Happy Hamster came back from the dead to host the Kid Pics videos.  The videos are your typical public domain cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Mighty Mouse, and Popeye.  But they're not typical.  They had a guy in a hamster suit to make kids feel comfortable enough to trust him like you would trust Mickey Mouse, Barney the Dinosaur, Big Bird, Elmo, and others.  And....yeah...it gets worse.  Take a look:

As you can see, the end of the tape shows that kids could join a club called the Kid Pics Club.  You get all kinds of great stuff for joining (so he says) including a T-shirt, newsletters, a poster left over from one of those failed Michael Jackson albums, and a one hour cartoon tape.
But you didn't get any of those sadly.  Here is the truth about Amvest Video.  Noticed how they said, "Please include a paragraph about yourself".  Parents...noticed a red flag there?????  Yep....the children that did that were in fact being sold to various pedophiles who run beauty pageants for kids.  This hamster is no nice friend to kids like Mickey Mouse is......this hamster did things unimaginable to man.    
Okay, onto the tapes themselves.  The covers were awful, and on one of them they used the name Disney for the public domain Disney cartoons on there.  This had to get them into even more trouble years later.

But THIS tape below has to be the most interesting......

This was a 3 tape collection of Disney cartoons.  The public domain cartoons by Disney leaves very little choices.  The Mad Doctor, Minnie's Yoo-Hoo, Oswald shorts, Alice shorts, and WWII propaganda shorts.  TONS of them.  For a collector at the time, these are rare cartoons never released by Disney, but noticed this collection was called Kid Pics 3 pack, no Disney name anywhere.  This has to be the strangest Disney tape ever released (since Disney never released this).  Once again...The Happy Hamster hosted all three tapes.  Not talking about the shorts, instead....JOIN MY CLUB!!!!!!!!  Yet another way to sell more kids to pedophiles...YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Fortunately, Disney released these WWII cartoons on DVD in the 2000's as part of the Walt Disney Treasures.  Leonard Maltin hosts instead of the dreaded Happy Hamster, and are beautifully remastered.
It was no surprise that the company died with all the controversies it had ranging from using the Disney name to using the letters from kids to sell to beauty pageant.  Many believe, however.....that The Happy Hamster is still out there.....waiting for his next victim.........