Our house wasn't a smoking house, but our VCR heads did get dirty (you'd see shooting stars across the picture).

I'm not sure what this Maxell thing was, but our cleaner was basically a VHS cassette with cloth "tape." You'd drip some rubbing alcohol solution on it then play it for a minute or so. It worked well and never ruined our VCR.

But the cleaner never played a video or had sounds. In fact it sent no signal to the TV because the "tape" wasn't magnetic, being cloth.

I've used the cleaning tapes with and without video. I honestly don't know if they ever worked, the cleaning strips never looked dirtier afterward, but they didn't mess anything up either.

yea, wtf?

I think it might have been "looped" in a special way, instead of the standard tape reel configuration.

Cleaning tapes had multiple sessions and you only rewound the cassette once you reached the last session. I like how Maxell squeezed in some product placement while they had a captive audience, that's the mark of a finely honed and ruthless corporate machine.

The one I had had a chart on the label, I think you got something like 6 rewinds before you were supposed to replace it and there were maybe a dozen cleaning sessions per rewind, at most.

Rental tapes really did dirty up an wear out VCR heads but I'm pretty confident these cleaners didn't do anything at all.

Oh what the hell I didn't notice until I read your comment

Maxwell House is a coffee brand. Kinda shitty too, no Red Mountain that's for sure.