Tribute to MIKE VRANEY – Founder of Something Weird Video

Article by Sam Moffitt

It was very sad to hear of the passing of Mike Vraney on January 2^nd, he was only 56 years old.  Anyone who is a true movie geek, film fan, or cinema addict owes him a debt of thanks.  With Something Weird Video Vraney made available hundreds, if not thousands of hours of rare, obscure and vintage films, most of which were, well..really weird.

Consider his association with Dave Friedman and H,G. Lewis, SWV put out virtually their entire catalog of films first on VHS and then dvd. Not to mention the films of Harry Novak, Coffin Joe and his bizarre films from South America and many other rare titles that were impossible to see, not so long ago.

SWV put out hundreds of collections of nudie cutie loops, stag films, trailers for drive-in swill and compilations of highway safety and class room instructional films.  If it was off the chain and out of the box Vraney would sooner or later put it out there for people like us to watch.

I especially thank him for putting out so many classic nudist films from the 50s and 60s. And the nudie cutie films of Friedman and other producers from the drive-in and grind house days.

When I was a kid growing up near St. Louis, Missouri I used to love looking at the ads in the Globe Democrat newspaper movie section.  There used to be a handful of theaters that featured “Adults Only” films.  The World Theater down town and the Olympic Drive-In on St. Charles Rock Road, maybe a couple of others that I cannot remember. I remember ads for Nature’s Playmates and Tobacco Roady and Space Thing.  How I wished I were old enough to go see those movies.  Being raised in a strict Baptist family I was told the human body is the Lord’s greatest creation, but you are not supposed to see it!  Being a typical little boy naturally I wanted to see it, preferably out in the sun, where you can see everything.  Thus nudism is probably my most intense fetish and I finally got to see a lot of those films thanks to Something Weird Video.

But there was a lot more product put out by SWV than just sexploitation.  Some of the prize titles in my collection are SWV editions of movies like the Starman series, also known as Super Giant.  Japanese films from the early 60s Evil Brain From Outer Space, Atomic Rulers of the World, Invaders From Space and Attack From Space.  These titles are public domain and can be found from a variety of distributors, but SWV loaded their editions with some great features including a magazine article detailing the history of these unique films, early anime like Prince Planet and a series of homemade sci-fi movies, shot on Super 8 and featuring lots of back yards and toys on strings. Great stuff.

Probably my favorites out of many SWV editions are Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, a disc that really shows how cool a DVD can be. The title movie was an interactive midnight show with a mad scientist, a man in a gorilla suit and a bunch of over age teen agers in a haunted house.  At a key moment the gorilla would run off camera, the film would stop while a guy in a gorilla suit grabbed a woman from the audience, planted there by the exhibitors and brought into the film by going behind the screen.  Of course the woman in the audience had to look and be dressed reasonably close to the woman in the film, making it appear the “fourth wall” had really and truly been broken.  With the title movie there are 3 commentaries, all by exhibitors who put on midnight spook shows all across the country.  And that’s not all, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party is loaded with extras like ads for midnight spook shows, trailers for horror movies, early music videos (soundies) with a Halloween theme (Boogie Woogie Boogie Man is my favorite!)  clips from horror movies, home movies with a horror theme and a complete feature, Bert Gordon’s Tormented, another public domain  movie but nice to have on a disc that is perfect for a Halloween party.  There are even instructions on how to put on your own spook show.

Another great SWV title is their sampler disc with dozens and dozens of trailers for their various titles, one of the best trailer compilations ever put together, and it used to come free if you bought an SWV DVD at Borders Books.

And there is so much more, more than I can possibly describe, see for yourself.  Visit SWV’s website HERE and browse a while, I guarantee you’ll find something you’ll want to see.

So I want to say thank you and a fond farewell to Mike Vraney.  A friend of mine advised me that Mike Vraney had some issues, which I won’t go into here, which made him a little hard to get along with.  And he was a heavy smoker so having lung cancer was almost expected.  But that does not lessen his impact on the world of movie fandom.  Something Weird Video provided a valuable service, and apparently they plan to continue, according to their website.

So farewell Mike Vraney, thank you, you will be missed.