1. An interactive video display system comprising, in combination: a video playback device adapted to respond to respective ones of a set of input control function commands either to play a prerecorded program medium to recover signal information recorded on a video signal track thereon or to fast reverse or fast forward scan said program medium while recovering medium position information from a control track thereon to produce control track pulse output signals; a video monitor coupled to said video playback device for receiving video output signals therefrom and producing video displays corresponding thereto; an input control signal means responsive to system user selected input commands to produce corresponding control signals; and a microcomputer system including a central processing unit, an operating program memory, a scratch pad memory, and a plurality of programmable input/output devices communicating with said central processor unit (CPU) by way of a system address bus, a system data bus, and a system control signal bus, a control track circuit coupled to said video playback device to receive said control track pulse output signals and being operative to produce a sequence of interrupt signals to said CPU in response thereto, and a data recovery circuit coupled to said video playback device to receive said video output signals therefrom for recovering data words contained therein, a first of said programmable input/output devices being coupled to said video playback device for supplying said input control function commands thereto under CPU-program control, a second of said programmable input/output devices being coupled to said input control signal means to communicate said control signals to said CPU under CPU-program control, and a third of said programmable I/O devices being coupled to said data recovery circuit to communicate data therefrom to said system data bus; said video display system being adapted to be controlled by program information provided on said prerecorded program medium and comprising a plurality of groups of live video segments and a plurality of data dump segments with a data identifying signal preceding each data dump segment adapted to be sensed by said data recovery circuit in conjunction with said CPU to enable operation of said data recovery circuit, each of said live video segments being preceded by a data dump segment which includes at least one control word identifying the medium location thereof, and at least one of said data dump segments consisting of a software routine in the form of a prearranged sequence of control words providing a set of branching instructions for said CPU to data dump loctaions associated with selected live video segments and instructions for interpreting a predetermined set of user input commands to operatively select one of said branching instructions, said CPU thereby being responsive to one of said predetermined set of user input commands to produce either a fast reverse or forward scan function command to said video playback device until an approximate medium location corresponding to a new data dump location is reached, using said interrupt signals received from said control track circuit as a guide, followed by a play function command to said video playback device until the data dump associated with the selected branching instruction is encountered on said medium and said live video segment associated therewith is displayed on said monitor.