Collide-O-Scope!

Since moving pictures have been invented, a lot of people have put a lot of strange stuff on the screen. Then, fifteen years ago, two guys from Seattle had an idea: what if we comb through all kinds of moving pictures, find the strangest stuff possible, put it all in a blender and present the resulting mishmash in a two hour show? To their surprise, people liked it very much, even though the people who watched it needed a detox after the show.

In fact, it was such a success, that they did another one with new material and similar results, and another one, and another one... And so it goes, all the way to today. Currently, they present their show, named Collide-O-Scope, once a month at the theater in the famous Crocodile in Seattle. And this week I was finally able to check them out.

To say that their mishmash of video is crazy is the understatement of the century. Not only the two curators find stuff that you can't believe people actually did (and recorded in video!) but they mix it all together in a way that makes the whole thing even more hilarious (and bizarre). Things like soap operas from the 70's combined with the spoof of soap operas from the 80's mixed with a crazy music video from now and some cuts of a very weird silent movie. It truly becomes a case of the whole being larger than the sum of its parts.

There were a couple of intermissions, which was good, because the crowd (and myself) could use a break. In those intermissions the two curators discuss some of the stuff that they found out and raffle bizarre prizes (like a poster for some Italian B movie from the 70's) to people in the audience.

When it was over, I couldn't believe I saw all that. If you want to spend some mind blowing two hours, I highly recommend this!







Location: Seattle, WA, USA

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