Blast from the past: Video Power

For years I have been trying to remember the name of a video game show I watched after school when I was a kid. Memories of the audience chanting “Stump! Stump! Stump!” during the quiz portion, and the winner’s mad scramble through the store at the end, grabbing video games off the wall and sticking them to a Velcro vest, haunted me. Not really, but I always wondered about the long lost title. (It was not, as all my friends assured me, Nick Arcade. I never remember watching Nick Arcade.) Thanks to the almighty power of the Internet, I finally figured it out today: Video Power.

Though I do not remember watching it everyday, I watched Video Power enough for it to make a lasting impression. (It could not have interfered with KGAN’s classic after-school lineup that, over the years, included Duck Tales, TaleSpin, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Darkwing Duck. I may have only been able to watch it on Thursday, when school released one hour early.) Needless to say, it was epicly early-nineties. Honestly: the intro and music is straight out of a 2 Unlimited music video.

Video Power aired on WGN and was preempted by Cubs day games — which, despite Video Power’s inherent awesomeness, is perhaps one of its most lasting impressions. I would come home, eager to watch Video Power, and find shirtless bleacher bums and Harry Caray’s drunken commentary instead. For years it was one of the reasons I despised the Cubs and reveled in their misfortune.