[imagesource: IMDb]

Happy Throwback Thursday. I know the week is dragging on but we are edging ever closer to Friday lunchtime when every self-respecting adult throws in the towel and declares the weekend open.

Today, we are focusing on a most unlikely cult hero named Jack Rebney – or, as he has come to be known around the world, ‘Winnebago Man’.

This story begins in August 1988 with the shooting of two 10-minute-long sales videos in Forest City, Iowa, that went very awry.

Here’s PopMatters with how the legend grew:

The “star” of a perpetually bootlegged VHS tape that started making the rounds among found footage enthusiasts around 1989 and then throughout the ’90s, Rebney became a cult icon for his increasingly harried, sputtering, profanity laden meltdowns on the set of an industrial training video for Winnebago motor homes.

The crew for this film became so incensed with Rebney’s constant barrage of insults and f-bombs, that, to extract a little revenge, they collated all these outtakes together, made copies, and distributed them among friends, who in turn made copies and passed them around.

When YouTube rose to prominence, a copy of the tape was uploaded and Rebney achieved an unwitting second wind of fame.

Headphones in, let the profanity wash over you:

The footage of Rebney became so famous that there’s even a documentary about him – the aptly named Winnebago Man:

I don’t want to give away too much, so either watch the doccie or read more about him here.

Well done on almost making it through the week without going full Jack Rebney.

[source:popmatters]