I discovered a free retro TV app built from the Internet Archive's forgotten VHS recordings, and I can't stop watching it

Published Nov 10, 2026, 11:30 AM EST Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, so when I stumbled across a Reddit post about Splunkr, a streaming service that clearly aims to recreate the vibe of old-school cable TV, I couldn't help but check it out. An entirely free app that streams content I watched as a kid is right up my alley. It's kind of like Coax, an Apple TV app I covered a few months ago that turns your Plex library into a personal live TV service, or similar apps like QuasiTV (which I also covered) or EratzTV, only it's already curated, features just 34 channels, and consists entirely of content from the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library of content known for hosting content no other platform would. When you click a channel, the player links directly to its source on the Internet Archive, which are mostly VCR-recorded VHS tapes uploaded directly to the nonprofit digital library. Someone had to press record on a VCR all those years ago, record a now-ancient TV show or movie, and then upload it to The Internet Archive for it to be part of Spelunkr's library. Because it sources its retro content this way, a Spelunkr channel or content on that channel sometimes goes down when the Internet Archive removes a file, but the dead programming usually isn't around for long. Splunkr uses Claude to check each tape file in its library every week, so when one goes down, another quickly takes its place. Users can also report dead programming on the streaming platform's Discord. Spelunker's creator says rights holders can request that their content be removed from Spelunker, but as a legal smokescreen, the app also emphasizes that it doesn't control the content the Internet Archive hosts. What's actually hosted by Spelunkr is the cool-looking digital cable retro guide that looks like it was pulled right out of the late 1990s, along with the "short breaks" between TV shows, which usually consist of a few words on a card and some music, all sourced by Creative Commons or Public Domain in mind. You can stream everything from old cartoons to random public access channels I watched an obscure public access TV show about an alien gorilla smoking cigarettes Credit: Spelunkr So what content is actually on Spelunkr? It varies depending on which channel you pick. For example, I selected the Saturday Morning channel and checked out some Sonic X and the Pokémon Movie, all recorded in gloriously pixelated VHS quality in 2004. The image and sound quality were awful, but at the same time, that's also part of the experience. Next, I clicked on Late Night Local and landed on an insane clip of a gorilla from space called Bobby G, Space Monkey. I don't quite know what I watched for the next few minutes, but it seems like late-night, mid-2000s public-access madness. You can see a count of how many people are watching a particular channel, so 23 other people and I were watching Space Gorilla smoke a cigarette. Cool. Up next was Radio-Active TV, a music video-focused TV station that's described as "someone taped over their sister's copy of Titanic with 6 hours of MTV." First up, Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag started playing, followed by a strikingly familiar M&M's ad. That's when I realized this recording was from an Australian music TV show called Video Hits. I then switched to Latchkey-TV and watched Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, a cartoon I watched a lot as a kid but totally forgot it even existed. This is when I discovered there's newer content on Spelunkr, too. A channel called Meddling Kids, focused on classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Yogi Bear, seemed to be streaming in HD and was recorded in January 2024. There's even a channel called Suplex that plays old WWF wrestling recordings. Another channel that caught my attention is Computer Chronicles, which features laughably bad computer educational software segments from the early 90s, along with Warp Zone, a channel focused on 2000s video game TV channel G4. I find myself watching G4 quite a bit, in part because I'm interested in gaming and in particular, retro gaming, but also because I really always wanted to watch G4 as a teenager, but my parents wouldn't pay for a cable package that included the channel. Over the past few days, I've found myself opening up Spelunkr and just aimlessly flipping channels for a few minutes when I have some downtime, just like I did as a kid. There's something almost relaxing about not being able to pick exactly what I want to watch, and instead, just stumbling across it while flipping channels. Splunkr isn't exactly legal But it isn't inherently illegal either What's particularly interesting about Spelunker is that it doesn't run ads and seemingly isn't interested in making money, so you don't necessarily need an account to use it. The platform exists purely for the love of the streaming cool content game. The only way to sign in is through Discord, which then gives Spelunkr your username, avatar, and email address. You can then post comments and chat on individual channels, as well as react live to content, adding a fun modern spin to the nostalgia-focused app. Spelunkr says it's not affiliated with the Internet Archive. While the app is totally free, its creators say that it's "one person's work and a server bill," and that it accepts donations. It's worth noting that while Spelunkr isn't inherently legal, there are obvious copyright concerns about the content it streams. For example, I'm sure Warner Bros. isn't fond of the platform streaming Pokémon TV show episodes for free, and I bet the WWE doesn't like old 1990s WWF content streaming. None of the music videos on Radio-Active have had their rights cleared to stream either. The platform seems to use a Napster-like argument to protect itself. Spelunkr isn't actually hosting any copyrighted content; it's just a fun retro TV guide app that lets you stream user-uploaded VHS recordings. Will I stream retro TV shows on Spelunkr all the time? Definitely not, but it's been fun to revisit some of the classic cartoons I enjoyed so much as a kid, complete with commercials I thought were wiped from my memory, but that still seems to be bouncing around in there somewhere. Right now, Spelunkr is only web-based, and there's a Roku app. It's unclear if its creator plans to bring the app to other platforms.