“Citizen Steve”: 40th birthday video tribute to Steven Spielberg

For years, I have had in my possession a videocassette copy of this 23-minute film. I won’t go into detail about how I procured it, but I considered it to be a rare find considering it was produced to play at the big 40th birthday shindig for Steven Spielberg. It features the proverbial cavalcade of stars including Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Robin Williams, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand singing “Happy Birthday,” and a bunch of industry insiders.

I would bust out the tape every so often to show friends or students as if I was in possession of some wondrous thing.

Then along came the Internet and poof — like that — my video is now nothing more than useless digital information. Because as with all things, the tribute has made its way to the web:

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with July 4th, but it seemed fitting to give folks a bit of something fun to watch on the holiday. See if you can identify everyone on the tape. There are some screenwriters including Spielberg’s sister Anne who co-wrote the movie Big and Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale who co-wrote the huge hit Back to the Future and the huge bust 1941 directed by none other than Spielberg himself.

Enjoy!

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