Betamax / video rental store / Craig T Nelson(?) screaming on a TV!!!!!!

YES PLEASSSSSSSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

scary movies scared the living sh!t out of me as a kid.  so much so that I never ever wanted to watch them, EVER NEVER (I’ve become a little less sissy as the years have passed).  with the rise of VHS in the early 80s, I constantly came across tapes with covers that were so scary, they’ve literally scarred me for life.  here are two tape covers/posters that made me wish I didn’t have eyes as a kid, and STILL creep me out to this very day (although I’m sure the movies wouldn’t anymo)

&

VHS by David Herbert, 2005

Before the Video Home System (VHS) arrived on the scene, what on earth did people do in order to watch old stuff or newish stuff that had just left the movie theater?  Luckily we didn’t have to worry about such thangs as we were born into a world flush with video cassette tapes.  Going to the video store was once a great adventure, and now, for butter or worse, has become a relic like going to the record store to buy the latest rocking LP or CD, or camping out for concert tickets the night before they go on sale.  Look, we’re more pleased than punch to Netlix shiz like the wind from the comfort of our own homes, but there’s juss something undeniably special about growing up in the last era when people had to make an effort to go out and get stuff to bring back for their home entertainments

Can’t remember eggzactly when the Thigh Master family first got their VCR player (it didn’t have a remote, but did have a cord you could plug into the box so you could pause recordings!), but we’d put it at no later than 1983, making us a ripe old age of 6.  And what kind of tapes do kids at that age love to watch?  Cartoons.  And what particular kind of cartoon tapes did 80s kids love?  Disney ones, DUHHHVS.  And so we’d force our parents to rent these Disney VHS tapes for us time and time again, and so many times again that it woulda probably made a lot mo sense to buy the VHS tapes outright (although they used to cost about $100) rather than shelling out rental fees left and right and right and left!!!

So what is the point of all this nostalgia tripping on VHS tapes?  Well, we juss really darn damn do miss those Disney tapes that came in them classic white puffed-out clamshell cases!!!!!  LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL THEY IS!!!!!  A simple box, with a pleasant presentation, and with nuttin but a kingdom of magic inside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here be the enitre list of Disney VHS releases from 1980 to 1983

guess which Disney VHS tape we rented the mostest? hint here

Trash Humpers the movie is not genius, but releasing it on 300 VHSes (150 NTSC, 150 PAL), with covers handcrafted by directed Harmony Korine is!

wait, there’s a Blu-Ray/VHS combo player on the market??????

have you seen Mister Lonely yet?????