About This Tape
This tape is a perfect time capsule of February 1999. Some anonymous Columbus resident recorded all six hours of Stephen King’s “Storm of the Century” miniseries on ABC6, and thank god they did — because the commercials are the real treasure here.
We’re talking Lay’s WOW Chips (the infamous olestra disaster), Intel Pentium III pre-launch ads, and Mandalay Bay promoting their grand opening that wouldn’t happen for another two weeks. The dot-com era is screaming through every ad break: go.com, 10-10-321, dial-around long distance services that feel like archaeological artifacts now.
Six hours of Stephen King’s original ABC miniseries about a mysterious stranger who arrives on a small Maine island during a massive blizzard — with supernatural demands the townspeople can’t refuse. Recorded from WSYX ABC6 Columbus on Valentine’s Day 1999, complete with all commercial breaks and local affiliate bumpers intact.
Potential Lost Media
The miniseries itself is commercially available on DVD. But this broadcast version with intact 1999 ABC commercials and local Columbus affiliate content? That’s where the real archival value lives.
Commercial Inventory
- Lay’s WOW Chips (Zoo commercial) — The infamous olestra chips that were pulled from the market after causing digestive nightmares. These ads are genuinely hard to find now.
- Mandalay Bay “Opening Soon” — Pre-opening ad for a casino that wouldn’t open for another two weeks (March 2, 1999). A very narrow broadcast window.
- go.com — Disney’s failed internet portal, shut down in 2001. Pure dot-com bubble artifact.
- Aerial Communications — A defunct regional cell phone provider later absorbed by VoiceStream, which became T-Mobile. Extremely obscure.
- Strange World promo — ABC sci-fi series that lasted only 3 episodes. About as short-lived as network TV gets.
- Surge ad with Smalls — Coca-Cola’s answer to Mountain Dew, discontinued and later revived thanks to a cult fanbase.
- Cadillac Escalade “Bad to the Bone” — First-generation Escalade launch ad from the 1999 debut year.
- Chunky Soup with John Elway — Aired just weeks after Elway won Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999.
- Nightbeat ABC 6 News segments — Local Columbus storm coverage and a Scott Taylor investigative piece. Local affiliate content is almost never preserved.
- Alero rollercoaster ad — The “active response system” commercial that became a minor obsession during the stream. Still trying to track down the original.
Stream Notes
Chat went absolutely feral during the local ABC6 Nightbeat segments. There’s something about seeing Columbus news anchors from 1999 that just hits different — the hair, the graphics, the Storm Watch branding. Pure Y2K-eve energy. The Alero rollercoaster ad became an instant obsession — we spent a solid chunk of time trying to track down the stock footage source. And the “What happened to Hawaii?” moment when someone noticed the tape-map overlay was missing a state became an instant running joke.