About This Tape
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 miniseries is fine, but the commercials are the real find here.
Lay’s WOW Chips with the infamous olestra disaster. Intel Pentium III pre-launch ads. Mandalay Bay promoting their grand opening that wouldn’t happen for another two weeks. The dot-com era screaming through every ad break: go.com, 10-10-321, dial-around long distance services that feel like they’re from another planet now. Six hours of King’s original ABC broadcast about a mysterious stranger who shows up on a small Maine island during a blizzard with supernatural demands the townspeople can’t refuse. Recorded from WSYX ABC6 Columbus, complete with all commercial breaks and local affiliate bumpers intact.
The Alero rollercoaster ad became an instant obsession during the stream. The local ABC6 Nightbeat segments sent chat completely feral. “What happened to Hawaii?” became a running joke that lasted the whole night.
Lost Media
The miniseries itself is commercially available on DVD. That’s not the point. This broadcast version with intact 1999 ABC commercials and local Columbus affiliate content is where the real archival value is. Local affiliate content is almost never preserved. The Nightbeat segments alone are worth the tape.
Commercial Inventory
- Lay’s WOW Chips (Zoo commercial) — The infamous olestra chips 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). Very narrow broadcast window.
- go.com — Disney’s failed internet portal, shut down in 2001.
- 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.
- 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. Still trying to track down the original.
This tape is WSYX ABC6 Columbus, February 14, 1999. For Columbus TV from that same station just two months later, the Jenny Jones tape from April 1999 is WSYX ABC 6 Columbus again, with a different set of local commercials and confirmed-lost talk show episodes. And for Columbus TV from the same ABC 6 station over a decade earlier, the 1987 World Series recording catches that station mid-rebrand from WTVN to WSYX.
