Social media may make it easier than ever to create and share a video mashup, but that doesn’t mean it invented the idea. Jonathan McIntosh has put together a collection of remixed videos from the pre-YouTube era, when viral popularity meant copying someone a VHS tape. The thirty videos all share a few common traits: subversive content, DIY production, and reappropriated source material. The earliest dates from 1941 and uses editing tricks to make marching Nazi soldiers appear to be performing a popular British dance of the time. Other highlights include Ronald and Nancy Reagan advocating illegal drugs in an address to the nation, a nightmarish mix of Winnie the Pooh and Apocalypse Now, and Sesame Street characters protesting police…

Continue reading…