ABOUT POWER HOUR HQ · 2009–2014

An archive of video power hours, for your drinking pleasure.

Welcome to Power Hour HQ! A power hour is a drinking game: one shot of beer a minute, for an hour. Originally, you did it to music. Then geeks who liked to drink went to college, got hold of video-editing software, and gave the game an upgrade: sixty one-minute clips of music videos, movie scenes, TV shows, and whatever else made their friends laugh. Drink when the clip changes.

I’m Pete Berg, the video maker and website tinkerer behind Oh Cany Productions and Pete’s QBasic Site. My friends and I made and watched these compilations through college and into “adulthood.” I started PowerHourHQ.com in February 2009 to share ours and collect the dozens of others scattered around the web. The site was active through 2014.

There was some unexpected drama along the way. In 2010, a trademark holder sent me a cease-and-desist letter over the name “Power Hour.” Other creators were threatened too, including musician Ali Spagnola, who had written sixty original one-minute songs. The idea that someone could claim a drinking game’s familiar name—and use it to get everyone else’s videos taken down—was a big deal for this little community. Ali fought the claim and won in 2013. The original posts below tell that story.

Most of the videos eventually disappeared from the sharing sites that hosted them. Luckily, I saw that coming and downloaded backups at the time, though I didn’t get everything. What’s here is a time capsule of millennial optimism from the early 2010s: homemade videos, questionable jokes, and an awful lot of effort spent on a drinking game. A fun throwback, if anything. Cheers!

What’s available now?

Watch 73 protected videos and one video hosted on Vimeo. Another 31 restored titles are awaiting transfer; four listings still need a recovered copy and one needs repair. Their original pages remain in the archive, with availability labeled.

Protected videos use a quick verification check, with five different videos per shared internet connection per rolling hour. Unlocks last four hours. Downloads and some browsers open the player in a separate tab.