U-Matic

Garage Sale P.S.A.

U-Matic S tape containing silent footage shot for public service announcements promoting the World's Largest Garage Sale Part IV at Cobo Hall on August 1st and 2nd, 1985. The footage highlight a variety of to be available at the event. The shots are of a man typing at a typewriter; a television, VCR, and a pile of VHS tapes; a series of zooms into an arrangement of shoes and a box containing a parking meter atop a desk; a woman, then a man, posed with a Honda motorcycle; a woman using a belt vibrator exercise machine; and a man reading a newspaper seated in a chair beneath a mid-century modern lamp.

The video is on an unlabeled 3M MBU-18 U-Matic S tape, housed within a black plastic latching case with a handwritten 3M label on its cover. The case also contains a typewritten draft script for the 20 and 30 second spots, with several handwritten alterations, as well as a handwritten list of the takes on the tape with comments.