Clearly, something about this preeminent male tear-jerker clearly resonated with a little boy who spent much of his life working instead of enjoying being a child. Who would upload a video of themselves crying publicly on YouTube? And why was Reese crying? As a nostalgia detective, Goldstein gravitated to the easiest and most obvious explanation for the outburst. This was particularly remarkable considering that one of the videos now available online shows Reese weeping so hard when musical guest Harry Chapin played “Cat’s In The Cradle” during a Mike Douglas episode that Reese was co-hosting, that the precious star was inconsolable and Reese had to leave the show with a half hour left. Goldstein was surprised and astonished to discover that the work of Mason Reese had made its way to YouTube but he was particularly fascinated to discover what nostalgia buff was uploading this pop culture ephemera to the site: Reese himself.
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Mason Reese, as I suspect none of you might remember, was a strange-looking child actor in the early 1970s whose shocking red hair, weird old man facial features, curious voice, and precocious air made him utterly distinctive and paved the way for a brief but prolific and lucrative career as a television pitchman.īut Reese didn’t just sell one product: he sold just about everything, and he was able to leverage his popularity as a commercial pitchman into appearances on The Mike Douglas Show, a TV pilot, and even a quickie book.
In this capacity as a memory machine, Goldstein used it extensively, and tipsily, and would always come back to the same strange obsession: Mason Reese.
YouTube is a memory machine as much as it is a website that hosts streaming videos. YouTube has the power to reconnect us with bits of our own past, and our cultural past, that otherwise would be permanently lost to the ages. As Jonathan Goldstein, beloved cult humorist behind CBC sensation Wiretap and longtime This American Life producer and novelist, acknowledges early in the internet-themed podcast Reply All, YouTube really is nothing short of magical. YouTube is such a big part of our lives these days that it can be easy to forget what a miracle the website represents.