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THE LEGEND OF THE HAT & ROBE: THE EXPLANATION OF AVAIALBLE VIDEO AND AUDIO |
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VIDEO |
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The original studio recording of the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling episode that featured the Hat & Robe is thought to no longer exist. It, like many other of the shows at that time, were recorded over each week by Crockett Promotions because of the cost of archiving 2-inch studio video tape. Sadly, no one in charge saw the future value of keeping copies of each week's show until years later. A week or so after the original show aired, they ran a summary of the whole angle on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, replaying the split, the hat, and the robe segments in their entirety. This was just before VHS tape machines became commercially available, and years before they became affordable. I was sixteen years old at the time. Determined to somehow permanently capture my Mid-Atlantic memories, I had begun taking my father's Kodak 8mm movie camera that captured our family vacations, and began using it to film wrestling right off the TV. There were several problems with this, not the least of which was the cost of this endeavor. But more practically, each roll of 8mm film lasted less than four (4) minutes. And any film that I shot of wrestling I had to pay for, and I was 16 years old and had only a part time after-school minimum-wage job. So I had to pick my spots, and shoot very sparingly. But I was determined to get the whole hat and robe angle. So, sitting on my living room floor, elbows propped on my knees trying to keep the camera steady as it aimed toward the TV, I shot little segments. The whole event totaled around 12 minutes, and I was trying to make sure I could fit in on one roll of film. The result is about 2 minutes of silent 8mm footage. But I got all the key moments, and it is the only visual record that exists that I'm currently aware of this angle. It's short, sometimes off-center, sometimes a little funny looking, but it's complete. The images you see in the Perfect Storm article were captured and edited from that 8mm film after being transfered to VHS tape, and then to DVD. |
As hard as it is for David Chappell and I to imagine it today, it's ironically true. In April of 1978, at the precise moment I was filming the Hat & Robe with my Dad's 8mm movie camera in Kingsport, TN, David was taping the Hat & Robe with his little portable cassette audio tape recorder in Richmond, VA. And we wouldn't meet until 21 years later. It's almost spooky. The audio clips you hear on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway and on Blackjack's Bar-B-Que are from David's collection of nearly 300 hours of audio tapes he made from 1974-1983, when he then bought his first VCR and quit making audio recordings. Together with my little 8mm film, they provide an amazing record of this special angle and event that would otherwise be lost forever. I once considered trying to match up David's audio with my 8mm film, but it is a difficult prospect since the film segments are so relatively brief. But we'll have to see about that. - Dick Bourne
Listen to this special audio montage, a sampling of brief audio clips from the famous Hat & Robe angle. (MP3 Format, 1:49, 657 KB)
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