Pickett and Nick Prueher co-host their Found Footage Festival live comedy show scheduled for Friday, Jan. 23, at 7:30 p.m., at the Reg Lenna Center for The Arts. Submitted photo

In the late 80s and early 90s camcorders made it easy for people to shoot video on a VHS tape for viewing on a VCR.

Remember making a VHS video about something, and then thinking it may have missed its mark?

And you filed the video without ever erasing the contents because you thought no one else would see it.

Then the VHS tape went missing, and it could have been thrown out with the trash.

But maybe not.

Maybe Joe Pickett or Nick Prueher found the tape and used it to make others laugh with their live comedy show – the Found Footage Festival.

Found Footage Festival comedy show is scheduled Friday, Jan. 23, at 7:30 p.m., at the Reg Lenna Center for The Arts, 116 E. Third St.

Prueher said the Found Footage Festival is a celebration of the videos that time forgot, dredged up in dusty thrift stores and estate sales throughout North America.

“Joe and I have developed a keen eye for what makes a good VHS clip for the Found Footage Fest and what’s going to play well in a big crowd,” Prueher said. “For us, it boils down to three main things: It has to be physically found on VHS – we don’t take any videos from the internet because that removes the personal connection we have to the material; it has to be footage that wasn’t meant to be shown in public – things like exercise tapes, training videos, home movies; and it has to be unintentionally funny. Luckily, during the golden age of VHS, which was roughly 1987-93, there is no shortage of footage that fits the bill.”

The duo will be live on stage at The Reg to take audiences on a guided tour of their latest and greatest VHS finds, providing commentary and where-are-they-now updates on the people in these videotaped obscurities.

Pickett and Prueher began collecting found videotapes in 1991 after stumbling across a training video entitled, “Inside and Outside Custodial Duties,” at a McDonald’s in their home state of Wisconsin. Since then, they have compiled the world’s largest collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos.

“We have an office in Brooklyn with over 15,000 tapes we’ve found at thrift stores since we started collecting in 1991 and we haven’t even watched a third of those videos. There is no end in sight,” Prueher added.

The Found Footage Festival live show debuted in New York City in 2004 and has gone on to sell out many live shows each year. It has been featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and National Public Radio, Prueher noted.

To present a nice, visible package for the show’s audience, and for archiving purposes, the duo digitizes the videos, but it’s a time consuming process.

“Well, you can’t fast forward a VHS tape while digitizing it so it all has to be done in real time,” Prueher said. “Right now, we have these little standalone digitizing boxes connected to three or more VCRs at a time, so we can capture tapes while we’re editing or working on other things. But you still have to watch everything and distill it into digestible chunks for audiences to enjoy and there’s no shortcut. I’ve spent hours watching cash register instructional videos that I’ll never get back. But we do it for your entertainment.”

Prueher said audience members can expect a live guided tour through the duo’s latest and greatest VHS finds with a running commentary and where-are-they-now updates. “As far as the footage goes, you’ll see things you’ve never seen before and can’t see anywhere else – videos about doll collecting, clown makeup, karaoke, Bigfoot, and telepathic communication with animals,” Prueher said. “It’s a joyous celebration of how ridiculous we are as a people.”

For ticket information visit reglenna.com or call 716-484-7070.