He wears his love of pop culture on his sleeve

Found Footage Festival founder takes his collection of cast and crew jackets on the road.

Pop culture tie-in clothing is everywhere, and you can proudly buy pop culture tie-in clothing anywhere. There’s a line of “Star Wars” kids’ clothing at the Gap, “Wicked” pajamas at Forever 21, and Orlebar Brown lets dads dress up like James Bond for $400 a shirt.

But what of fans of forgotten ‘90s movies like “Boxing Helena” or “Cops and Robbersons”? How can they wear their cinematic hearts on their sleeves?

For them, the only wearable piece of movie merchandise could be cast and crew jackets, the promotional satin bombers and denim jackets given out on movie shoots as thank-you gifts. Nick Prueher, co-founder of the Found Footage Festival, has made finding such jackets sort of a side quest to his two-decade life’s work hunting down weird VHS tapes for his day job at the festival.

The Found Footage Festival is on tour, coming to Madison’s Barrymore Theatre on Friday. Nick and Joe did a very fun interview for my day job at City Cast Madison. But for the Substack, I wanted to dive into a different, more specialized obsession of Prueher’s – his love of cast and crew jackets.

On Thursday, Prueher is showcasing dozens of his favorite jackets at a special exhibit at a local vintage toy store, Meep Meepleton’s World of Fun. It may be the only traveling museum where you’re allowed to wear the exhibits.

In a phone interview on the road, his car packed to the gills with jackets, Prueher talked about the origin story of his sartorial obsession:

I’ve interviewed you several times over the years for the Found Footage Festival, and you always seem to have some side project going, like pranking local TV morning shows or creating a giant inflatable parade balloon of your mom. What draws you to that?

I guess I just get easily bored. I’m a collector at heart, and we kind of found a way to monetize that with the Found Footage Festival. I just always like to have some goofy project, because otherwise I just get creatively a little staid. So it’s fun to come up with some new project and make it happen.

How did you get into collecting cast and crew jackets?

Growing up, I would go to East Towne Mall, and shows like “The Simpsons” would have merch. But for other shows, like the TV show “Small Wonder” about the robot girl, there wasn’t merch even though it was a pivotal show. That’s how Joe and I first bonded and started making Found Footage Festival, realizing that we both ironically appreciated “Small Wonder.”

Then I find out there's an audio engineer selling his cast and crew jacket for 80 bucks. I can scratch my nostalgia itch for that show and have this cool, unique object that only 50 people got.

So I just started finding them. And then people found out I collected them and started sending them to me. And it just seemed like a fun project. I was at a vintage store in New Jersey, and I was like, “Hey, would you ever want to show off, like, casting crew jackets from the ‘80s?” And they're like, “Yes!”.

And then I just thought I should just put these jackets in my car while I’m driving on the road on tour in January and December. And one of the first places I thought to bring them was Meep Meepleton’s in Madison.

It seems like the perfect place.

And the night before I’m going to Bric-a-Brac Records in Chicago. I realized that I’m friends with the owners of these stores because we have a shared mental illness. There’s a real secret language we have. “Oh, you have a ‘Father Dowling Mysteries’ jacket? Awesome.”

And just to back up, these are jackets that were given to people who worked on a film, either while they were shooting it or as a thank-you gift at the end.

When I worked with “The Late Show With David Letterman,” Dave and the producers would all get us a jacket that said Dave’s production company, Worldwide Pants, on it. While I was working on the show, I was spending like 90 hours a week there, and I didn’t appreciate the gifts at all. I almost resented getting these jackets.

Later, I was in a thrift store in my neighborhood in Queens called Just Things. And there was a “One Life to Live” satin jacket, and it had a woman's name, “Debbie,” on it. It was like fifty bucks, and I passed it up, and then I instantly had remorse about not buying it.

The next day, I went back, and the woman working there was like, “You didn’t buy it, you idiot. Somebody scooped it up. You made a huge mistake.” Ever since then I’ve kept my eye out for some of my favorite TV shows, like “Alf,” and my favorite movies, like John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” The more random the better.

Do you ever find out the story behind the jacket? Like, who it belonged to?

Sometimes the mystery is better. But last week, somebody was selling a “Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego?” jacket with the name “Lynne” on it. And I knew that Lynne Thigpen, who was this great actress, played the Chief on the show. So I knew it had to be hers. I picked it up from the seller at a diner in Chelsea, and it turned out he was Lynne’s widower.

He told me that she would get mobbed when that show was at its height. They couldn’t go out in their neighborhood in Chelsea when school let out, because kids would just descend upon the Chief. Now I have her jacket on display. So I do like hearing the stories.

Quite a legacy.

One time I had flown into LaGuardia after a two-week tour, and there’s no great public transportation from the airport like there is in every other major city. So I’m taking the B60 public bus from LaGuardia to catch the 7 train, and it’s a long commute. Anybody who has any money at all takes a cab. So I’m on the bus, and I see this guy wearing a “Law & Order” satin crew jacket. I’m thinking, “Oh man, they must not pay their sound guys or grips very well if they have to take a public bus.”

And as I got up, I saw it was Richard Belzer. He was just a man of the people, a New Yorker who couldn’t justify paying for a cab. You just had to really love the guy. He wasn’t afraid to be himself out there.

How do you have the jackets displayed?

Well, I’m there, so people can ask questions, and nobody walks off with my “Cops and Robbersons” jacket. I have an informational guide about the museum, where you can scan a QR code, and I made an audio guide about some of the notable jackets. So even though I’m right there, you can scan a QR code and hear the theme song for the show and hear me saying some thoughts about the jacket. It’s like you’re going to the Smithsonian.

It just drives home the fact that 150 people worked on a show like “Small Wonder” or “Family Matters,” and they had lives and careers. This is a little connection to all those hard-working people who made those fondly remembered shows.