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Why is the VCR so intimidating? One problem is the ever changing technology, another the lack of universal standards. Cable has complicated things enormously; with some hookups, programming the VCR requires two separate sets of instructions -- one for the cable converter (to switch channels), another for the VCR (to turn on at the proper time). And even if the machine is programmed exactly right, any one of a host of pitfalls can scuttle the enterprise. Frustrated VCR users can recite them through gritted teeth: forgetting to put in a cassette; failing to turn on the timer or (on some machines) switch off the VCR; accidentally leaving on the mute button; coming home to discover that a presidential press conference has put the whole evening's schedule out of whack.
To Peter McWilliams, who has written several best-selling books about personal electronics, resistance to VCR technology reflects the fact that "people don't care enough about it. If it really is important enough, then we'll learn how to do it." Compounding this is the irony that in order to master a VCR, the defining device of the video age, one must first master a nearly antiquated, pre-MTV skill: reading an instruction book. Says David Dewalt, a salesman at Brands Mart in Kansas City, Missouri: "Reading the manual is something most customers don't understand."
The defiant ignorance voiced by many VCR-phobics may be a sign of technology backlash. "I'm electronically incorrect," says Kathy Harrison of Raleigh, North Carolina, who got a VCR for her birthday four years ago and hasn't taped a show yet. "I don't like appliances." Or it may be merely another case of American don't-know-how. In City Slickers, Billy Crystal spends much of one day on the trail fruitlessly trying to explain to Daniel Stern how to tape one show while watching another. "He'll never get it!" cries their partner, Bruno Kirby. "It's been four hours. The cows can tape something by now." Yes, and those moo-activated VCRs are just around the corner.