In 1991, while working at a McDonald’s in high school, Nick Prueher walked in on his buddy in the break room watching a video. His friend was training to become a manager and, as such, was required to watch dozens of training tapes. This one, for McDonald’s janitors, was called Inside And Outside Custodial Duties.

In it, a new janitorial trainee named “Chris” buffs windows and sees “McC,” an ambiguous entity, or perhaps a state of being, that’s never explained. Delighted by the earnest acting and bizarre mythology of McC, Prueher stole the tape and, that evening, showed it to his best bud since he was 10, Joe Pickett.

That tape marked the beginning of a Friday night routine. Prueher and Pickett would invite friends into their parents’ living rooms and provide running commentary and jokes on the weird, esoteric VHS tapes they found at thrift stores. Eventually, the two friends would take this guided comedy tour of their favorite VHS moments out of the living room and into a New York theater. Turns out, people were ready to look back at the VHS era and laugh.

“It’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos,” Prueher told Gizmodo, “but with stuff that wasn’t meant to be seen in a theater, presented live.”

They called the comedy show the Found Footage Festival , and 22 years later, the pair remain co-hosts, touring the country with highlights from their VHS collection, which now numbers more than 15,000 tapes. Often, they track down the stars of the video, feature them in mini-documentaries, and bring them on stage to do bits.

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