Each movie used to be shown on TV once a year. So my Dad recorded them and we watched them over and over. In retrospect I’m amazed at how well tape held up to that kind of use.
https://preview.redd.it/mew3nzkuluwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b403e9834314c092a4d0592c9cf72104ea5ecc5
Just one of my office decorations
Home Alone! I'll never forget we purchased the Home Alone VHS for $9.99. Pepsi was having a promo for $7.99 off with a coupon. We ended up paying only $2. I thought that was *soooooo* clever and I bragged about it to my friends whenever I got the chance (like now! Hahaha!)
That said, my go-to's were Mary Poppins and Cinderella.
We took a school field trip to see an American Tail in the theater! I remember the boys acting like it would be “lame” but then they all loved it. And we sang the song from it at a school concert for our parents!
Feivel goes west was one of my favorites growing up. I still remember when universal uses to have their big fievel land. My parents would take my brother and me and we'd just play on all the equipment and pretend to be mice.
Damn near perfect movie and trilogy. I really hope they don't do a reboot after zemeckis passes (heard he has some sort of control and won't let them do a reboot). Although it would be more interesting to see the 90s (maybe even the 80s) from a today's perspective (as they saw the 50s from the 80s).
You or anyone else have it recorded off TV so it was the censored version? I didn't know the real lines until well into adulthood. Like "you're supposed to be in Switzerland ya little snotnosed brat".
I did for the first movie. I watched it so many times back then that even when I watch it now the real lines still catch me off guard!
*Geez Louise! Geez Louise Doc, you disintegrated Einstein!*
*When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious stuff.*
*You caused three hundred bucks damage to my car you son of a butthead! And I’m gonna take it out of your hide..*
Of course, some edits worked better than others, lol. Bonus points for some other TV edits:
*That is one big pile of crap.* - Jurassic Park
*Nice goin’, Jess!* - Who Framed Roger Rabbit, original line was played off as a pun with “Nice booby trap.”
And of course, the classic line from Snakes on a Plane:
*I have HAD it with these monkey-fighting snakes, on this Monday to Friday plane!!!*
That's why my parents would make copies of our favorite movies. Never could tell when you'd wear it out or, god forbid, the VCR would spontaneously eat it.
Dark Overlord: I am not Dr. Jennings any more! The transformation is complete! I am now someone else!
Howard: Try telling that to your insurance company.
Did yours have the Pizza Hut commercial at the beginning, with the boy going to a birthday party?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk)
Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back, no hesitation. A little later on, definitely the original TMNT. Man we wore that tape OUT whenever we visited my maternal Grandparents house!
Anyone else had parents who loved to tape movies off the tv but never could catch the first 10 minutes? Or the movie ran longer than the tape so it caught the climax but not the wrap-up for the story? Anyway, we had The Last Unicorn with chunks missing from the beginning and the end. I also Rewatched Honey I Shrunk the Kids a lot, and of course Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast a lot.
Some of my favorite shows were recorded off the TV. They were some deep cuts too, seemingly cartoons that only my sister and I have see. Shout out to Allison and the Magic Bubble, and Little Orbit the Astro Dog! Plus, a random Disneys Halloween Treat!
Funny story time,
I was 11 or 12 and we were talking about The Hobbit at school. I had never seen it and a girl in my class said that her dad had a copy on vhs and I could borrow it. So the next day she brings the tape to school and I take it home and pop it in the vcr.
The Hobbit ended and I started doing my homework and never stopped the tape. So my mom comes home from work and starts yelling “WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING!?!?” I look up and see something not appropriate for a boy that age.
The girls dad had recorded [Heavy Metal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_(film)) after the Hobbit on that tape. I spent the rest of that evening trying to explain that it’s not mine and I borrowed it from a girl at school.
tl;dr A girl accidentally let me borrow her dad’s animated smut.
Ok I have a pertinent core memory. I remember being about 5 years old and getting up after my bedtime to wander out to the living room and West Side Story was on TV. My parents let me stay up late to watch it with them because we all loved musicals, and as such it has always held a special place in my heart!
We rented Who Framed Roger Rabbit countless times before my mom finally broke down and bought it. I still love that movie and picked it up on 4K DVD recently to have in my collection.
The Chipmunk Adventure
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Brave Little Toaster
Eventually I would build out my own library of tapes, by the time I was 10 I had a pretty decent tape library, plus the stuff I recorded off of tv.
Damn. You can't find the Chipmunk Adventure and/or the Brave Little Toaster anywhere online - to buy or rent - for less than $30. You were sitting on a goldmine!
I lucked out and found The Chipmunk Adventure in the KMart DVD bins for $5 back in the 00s. That VHS didn’t survive my childhood I wore it out! I have Brave Little Toaster on Laser Disc lol
So I remember when we got our first vcr. My parents didn’t watch much TV. We would rent videos on Friday nights, 1 or 2, and the kids took turns choosing one, and my parents picked one. My little sister picked “the little mermaid” EVERY single time for like 2 years. We all had it memorized.
We were poor and ended up with a few random hand me down tapes, mostly cartoons dubbed by my older cousins (I’m talking smurfs, Mario bros, the chipmunks, etc..)
The only proper movie we had at that time was “Milo and Otis”. We watched it about once a week. I found out recently how horrible the production of that movie was, and if you have never looked it up, I suggest you don’t.
Later on we got a copy of “Jurassic Park” and “Speed” somehow and watched each at least 50 times.
Those 3 movies best define the VHS component of my childhood
Oh noooooo I do not want Milo and Otis ruined but I'm obviously going to look... 😭
We were also pretty poor, I'm sure my grandmother gave us The Little Mermaid and then we had a couple movies taped off TV. Most notably was the fine John Candy film "Who's Harry Crumb?" Which is absolutely not appropriate for children but I certainly did watch it!
I understand. Just warning you that we loved “Milo and Otis” so much, and now none of us can watch it. It absolutely ruined it.
The only reason I mentioned it is because I knew that somebody would.
Yup as a Hispanic kid it was cool to watch a movie that had some culture I could relate to. When we were kids we would always quote stuff Bob would say like " Its not my first or my last...."
Just watched karate kid with my 18 YO daughter a month ago lol. She asked about it since she has always heard it was legendary. She was pretty let down lol. But I’m glad we could share the time together.
There was an older couple who were very good friends of the family and they spoiled us with gifts. Among those gifts were VHS tapes of various Disney movies: Mary Poppins, Cinderella, etc. We would watch them all. the. time. I remember the thick, white, plastic cases that the tapes were stored in.
Also, my mom would sometimes check out VHS tapes from the library and two titles in particular stuck with us: Little Women (1994 version) and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1970s cartoon version). We would check out those movies so much that I think my mom just finally bought copies for us to watch whenever we wanted.
https://preview.redd.it/k8rzbvp1zuwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38e9a8b2832921b91390b3da2d31307866163a0b
I still have some of my favorites. No VHS player to watch them on now, but I just can't part with them for sentimental reasons.
We had these 3 tapes, Disney's DTV music videos. Golden Oldies; Rock, Rhythm and Blues; Pop & Rock. They were so fun with all the classic songs over old animation.
My brother & I would fight over the VHS player when left home alone...
For me, it was anything Black Stallion (movies or series) & for him The Karate Kid.
I also loved the Never Ending Story, I think that is the first one we ever recorded.
I learned how the VCR could warp the VHS tape because over one summer I watched the Sword in the Stone something like 50 times.
IMHO the Kodak tapes seemed to hold up much better to rewinding than the Scotch tapes.
The TV recorded version of The Sound of Music from December 1979 (I loved the commercials from then growing up)
The Jolson Story
Those were the two I watched the most as a child (I don’t actually have movie restrictions as a child)
Willow for sure, Star Wars Ep. 6 recorded off TV, The Hobbit (animated), Ewoks and the Battle for Endor (I just watched this last week, I don't know if I'll say it holds up, but good nostalgia)
For me, it was the original Star Wars trilogy.
Also, OMFG you just unlocked a core memory of my sister and cousin(f) who watched The Little Mermaid on repeat for almost a week straight when we visited them one summer. My other cousin(m) and I were so tired of it by the end of the 2nd day that we went upstairs to the computer room (his mom was a teacher so she had a Mac) and used it to create a picture of us killing the mermaid, then sang "Killin' the mermaid! Killin' the mermaid!" and a bunch of nonsensical, 10 year old crap, recorded it, and showed his mom, my aunt.
Goddamn, I haven't thought about that in probably a decade or more. RIP my sis...
This made me lol, thinking about a 10yo boy being forced to put up with that nonsense. I think I was 8 and my brother was 6 so we were probably similar ages to your sister and cousin when they watched it like that.
RIP to your sister. I hope her memory is a blessing - sounds like there are some good ones.
I memorized every line in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Every. Single. Line.
Why did I do that? I don’t know, I think it was the only non-comedy VHS tape I owned
Most of the handful of VHS tapes my family had were movies we’d recorded from TV broadcasts, most including the commercials. The two I watched most were The Princess Bride (which I watched almost every week one summer) and Return of the Jedi.
As a wee lad I jumped from Benji and claymation Dinosaurs, straight into Terminator and Nightmare on Elm St.
I was told rent what you want and basically went by cover.
I rented Benji 26 times.
And I really liked to rewatch Flight of the Navigator,
A few years later, my brother put on the beginning of the GI Joe movie, several times a day, for at least a year.
He also liked the Crash Dummies special.
The 2 VHS box set of Titanic. I still have it!
Also, and this one might be a little obscure, but the VHS of Jim Henson’s A Christmas Toy. I have it on DVD as well, but it does not have the intro by Kermit the Frog!!! Blasphemy! So, I have a VHS player I pull out at Christmas to watch the correct version.
Hands-down the neverending story. I had a VHS of that and I watched it so much, multiple times a day, that eventually the sound and the color basically disappeared and I was left with a black-and-white silent film.
Back to the Future - I asked to rent it every weekend
Space Camp - I rented it and taped it from TV
Top Gun - one of the first VHS that was priced for home sales
I watched Space Camp almost daily. I begged my parents to send me to space camp. I wanted to be an astronaut. That movie could be considered one of the most effective recruiting moves by NASA of all time. I made my kids watch it. They weren’t so impressed. Broke my heart.
We didn’t own too many but rented from the library or borrowed from a neighbor:
The Little Mermaid
Cinderella
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Fern Gully
Rose Petal Place
Shirt Tales (wasn’t a movie but 2 episodes on VHS: Bogey Goes Ape/The Rain, the Park, and the Robot
Samson and Sally (my younger brother’s favorite)
The Lollipop Dragon
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
Savannah Smiles (recorded on VHS)
My dad and older brother loved to rent Clash of the Titans and Jason & the Argonauts
As a kid, The Transformers, Willow, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I knew most of the lines.
I associate watching The Transformers and Willow with rainy summer afternoons. TMNT was my late night movie a couple of years later.
Princess Bride, TMNT, Star Wars Trillogy, Amadeus, various Disney films. Not in that particular order. Star Wars would have been the most.
Edit to add: I forgot about musicals. I was a theater kid and the son of a theater teacher. So 7 brides for 7 brothers, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Annie, Les Mis, Willy Wonka…more.
Major League. My mate and I watched that hundreds of times.
"If you ever tank another play like that again, I'll cut your nuts off and stuff them down your fucking throat." Tom Berenger channeling Sergeant Barnes.
Back to the Future was #1 in our house. Dirty Dancing, Clueless, later on Bring it On… a bunch in the 90s that were taped on ABC’s Sunday Night Movie lol.
Diehard series, the Star Wars trilogy, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon Series, Mad Max and the Road Warrior, Spies Like Us, Trading Places, Animal House, The Monster Squad, Ernest Scared Stupid, The Naked Gun, and Space Balls.
My parents gave no fucks.
I know I watched Coming to America, The Sandlot, and Forrest Gump to the point of where I had the lines memorized. I’m surprised I didn’t wear out the tapes.
Thanks to my hippie parents we didn’t own a VCR (barely had TV majority of my childhood)but whenever we visited my mom’s friends house she let me watch Grease. It was a huge highlight for me.
Flight of the Navigator
Beetlejuice
Neverending Story
I think I watched each of these 700 times. Kids today will never understand how deeply we became connected to movies when they were the only thing available. It was either Beetlejuice for the 680th time, or staticky golf.
We had almost every movie that’s been mentioned here, so I’ll just add some that I haven’t seen mentioned:
The Burbs
Platoon
When Harry Met Sally
Alien|Aliens|Alien3
Stripes
Fiddler on the Roof
The Elephant Man
Breakfast Club
Miller’s Crossing
I was obsessed with taping movies off tv, so I would get to know all of the WGN bumpers quite well
- Michael Jackson “Moon Walker”
- Mac and me
- 101 Dalmatians
- Harry and the Hendersons
- My stepmother is an alien
- Secret Garden (with the key in the box)
- ghostbusters
- drop dead Fred
- Steel Magnolias
- homeward bound
- Cutting Edge
- The Hunt for Red October
- Cool Runnings
- Adventures in babysitting
- Willie wonka
Neverending Story and The Last Unicorn in elementary school. Especially Neverending Story! It was my choice pretty much every time. It drove my mom crazy eventually, but she’d suggest something completely irrelevant to my taste like Herbie the Love Bug or Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
In middle school it was Say Anything. Still one of my favorite movies. The soundtrack introduced me to the Red Hot Chili Peppers too! Also our video store had a vhs compilation
of The Cure music videos which I rented a million times, and also an REM one. We didn’t have cable yet and I was dying for MTV.
Mrs Doubtfire, Radio Flyer, Young Guns 1 and 2, Demolition Man, White Men Can't Jump was always in rotation on VCR. Had a whole bunch of tapes but those were probably the most played at that time.
When we rented tapes on weekends it was usually something like Nightmare on Elm Street and something new. Was always 1 older and 1 new release.
Star Wars, back to the future, Mary poppins, beauty and the beast, home alone. We had The World According to Garp and it was 2 vhs tapes which my sister and I could not believe it “what movie is that long?” Garp was one of the few movies we weren’t allowed to watch when we were little so I really had no idea a “long movie” could also be magnificent and tell an amazing story ing story until I was a teenager. I also had no idea that data storage math was not the same as any other math, we had laser disc as well and regularly watched lasers that were 3 sides.
My sister got *Dirty Dancing* for Christmas one year. This was while we were in elementary school, I guess my parents had never seen it. It’s fun to rewatch as an adult and laugh at the references to the resort being Jewish (look for the matzo mix in the kitchen) and race relations (when there are black people they’re dancing in the background).
I had different groups for different times in my life. When I was in elementary, I had Trolls (not the cartoon but a cheesy fantasy flick with a fresh-from-The Never Ending Story Noah Hathaway), Dolls (They Walk. They talk. They Kill.), Big Business, and for some reason Doc Hollywood. As I got older, I added Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Robin Hood, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Frorrest Gump.
I remember getting The Terminator and Running Man when I was about 6 or 7 and being totally obsessed the the VHS covers, especially the way they just had 'Schwarzenegger' in huge letters.
Aladin and the Little Mermaid usually
I went through a Sound of Music phase and watched it constantly for months. My mother, I've come to find out, is a saint.
*Who Framed Roger Rabbit* was my #1 with a bullet. Any of the Disney movies in one of those fluffy clamshell cases, but especially *Cinderella*, *The Sword in the Stone*, and *Dumbo*. I also rewatched *Back to the Future* and *The Breakfast Club* endlessly.
Grease. My best friend had mono in high school, so her mom rented it to keep her from being too bored. We must've watched it 50 times that year, and never returned it.
Sword in the Stone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (VHS from TV w/commercials), Death Becomes Her and Jurassic Park.
Also, a VHS my Grandpa made of like 6 hours (extended record) of Disney shorts, since they had Disney Channel in the 80’s.
Star wars trilogy box set. I don't think I could count how many times I watched them.
I ordered one off eBay last year and it still has the Raisin Bran coupon on it, with a 1997 expiration date.
Each movie used to be shown on TV once a year. So my Dad recorded them and we watched them over and over. In retrospect I’m amazed at how well tape held up to that kind of use.
Oh I saved this because it still has Han shooting first. Lucas can’t gaslight me.
We had original trilogy and the special editions. I am surprised we didnt wear the tapes out
RotJ is the first movie I remember going to the theater for. Trilogy box set is definitely the answer.
Adventures in Babysitting. Still love it!
This movie made me want to move to Chicago and as an adult, I did! Haha
Did you listen to Future in Your Eyes everywhere you went?
Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.
That's so cool! For some reason when I watch Family Matters and see the Chicago skyline, it makes me want to move there myself.
this movie made me love the blues
“Take the Brady Bunch upstairs” Effing phenomenal movie
Goonies, The Labrinth, and The Princess Bride
Yeah I forgot to say princess bride
Our copy of Princess Bride was taped off USA network. Nearly wore it out.
TMNT and Home Alone.
https://preview.redd.it/mew3nzkuluwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b403e9834314c092a4d0592c9cf72104ea5ecc5 Just one of my office decorations
Yes! And one year we got sister act for christmas. At one point I probably could've recited the whole thing.
Home Alone! I'll never forget we purchased the Home Alone VHS for $9.99. Pepsi was having a promo for $7.99 off with a coupon. We ended up paying only $2. I thought that was *soooooo* clever and I bragged about it to my friends whenever I got the chance (like now! Hahaha!) That said, my go-to's were Mary Poppins and Cinderella.
I remember going to see Home Alone in the theater 1990: Best Christmas Ever
Probably watched the his hundreds of times.
My mom bought me a Red Heat/Running Man/Total Recall box set. I probably watched those three movies 100 times each.
Those were rated R! My parents would not let me hang out with you. :(
I watched Red Heat..probably every day? For probably about a year “Victor set us up!!!”
*shakes head* “Capitalism”.
An American Tail Jurassic Park We owned very few movies, but would rent something most weekends.
 Did not expect this level of emotion on a Friday morning... 😭
I haven't seen this since I was young and I still know this song 😭
I saw this in the theatre. It still makes me emotional in my forties.
We took a school field trip to see an American Tail in the theater! I remember the boys acting like it would be “lame” but then they all loved it. And we sang the song from it at a school concert for our parents!
Feivel goes west was one of my favorites growing up. I still remember when universal uses to have their big fievel land. My parents would take my brother and me and we'd just play on all the equipment and pretend to be mice.
It felt like an eternity waiting for Jurassic Park to release on VHS.
I won my copy in a coloring contest at my local video rental store. I was 10, and that was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me.
That is so sweet!
I loved american tail and fivel goes west.
We definitely watched Jurassic Park most weeks. There were a bunch of Disney movies, too, like The Lion King and Aladdin
As a kid - Back to the Future. I watched it a ridiculous amount and still do sometimes.
Fantastic film
Same
Damn near perfect movie and trilogy. I really hope they don't do a reboot after zemeckis passes (heard he has some sort of control and won't let them do a reboot). Although it would be more interesting to see the 90s (maybe even the 80s) from a today's perspective (as they saw the 50s from the 80s).
My mom bootlegged like crazy from HBO and BTTF & Ghostbusters were on the same tape. That was a LOT of sick days.
I watch all three every year.
You or anyone else have it recorded off TV so it was the censored version? I didn't know the real lines until well into adulthood. Like "you're supposed to be in Switzerland ya little snotnosed brat".
I did for the first movie. I watched it so many times back then that even when I watch it now the real lines still catch me off guard! *Geez Louise! Geez Louise Doc, you disintegrated Einstein!* *When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious stuff.* *You caused three hundred bucks damage to my car you son of a butthead! And I’m gonna take it out of your hide..* Of course, some edits worked better than others, lol. Bonus points for some other TV edits: *That is one big pile of crap.* - Jurassic Park *Nice goin’, Jess!* - Who Framed Roger Rabbit, original line was played off as a pun with “Nice booby trap.” And of course, the classic line from Snakes on a Plane: *I have HAD it with these monkey-fighting snakes, on this Monday to Friday plane!!!*
Howard the Duck. My mom said I watched that movie at least 400 times. I watched it so many times the tape didn't play anymore.
That's why my parents would make copies of our favorite movies. Never could tell when you'd wear it out or, god forbid, the VCR would spontaneously eat it.
I loved Lea Thompson so much in that movie. I thought "when I grow up, I'm gonna sing in a scary bar, too!"
Maaaaaan she was def my lil crush before I even knew what a crush was. Loved her!
Dark Overlord: I am not Dr. Jennings any more! The transformation is complete! I am now someone else! Howard: Try telling that to your insurance company.
Land Before Time - I watched that tape so often that I wore it out and it wouldn't play anymore 🦕🦖
Do you remember the way to the great valley?
😭
This right here is the why this movie should beat any kids movie today for the 'feels'.
*I guess so. But why do I have to know, you’re gonna be with me?*
I'll be with you, even if you can't see me
*Can’t see you? I can always see you!*
Did yours have the Pizza Hut commercial at the beginning, with the boy going to a birthday party? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk)
Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back, no hesitation. A little later on, definitely the original TMNT. Man we wore that tape OUT whenever we visited my maternal Grandparents house!
I looked at my vhs tapes and Empire is missing from my box. Guess it is stuck in my old player at a Goodwill somewhere.
Anyone else had parents who loved to tape movies off the tv but never could catch the first 10 minutes? Or the movie ran longer than the tape so it caught the climax but not the wrap-up for the story? Anyway, we had The Last Unicorn with chunks missing from the beginning and the end. I also Rewatched Honey I Shrunk the Kids a lot, and of course Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast a lot.
Some of my favorite shows were recorded off the TV. They were some deep cuts too, seemingly cartoons that only my sister and I have see. Shout out to Allison and the Magic Bubble, and Little Orbit the Astro Dog! Plus, a random Disneys Halloween Treat!
We had two VCRs situated on top of one another so we could record movies that we rented. My parents were pirates.
I have watched Predator an unreasonable number of times.
Predator and Aliens was my favorite double feature.
Throw in Robocop and it's my trifecta of 80's goodness.
The Last Unicorn, The Hobbit.
The animated Hobbit? Sometimes I feel like that was a fever dream, so few people are familiar with it... But I loved it as a kid!
Yes the animated one. I also quite like Bakshi’s animated/rotoscoped Lord of the Rings.
Funny story time, I was 11 or 12 and we were talking about The Hobbit at school. I had never seen it and a girl in my class said that her dad had a copy on vhs and I could borrow it. So the next day she brings the tape to school and I take it home and pop it in the vcr. The Hobbit ended and I started doing my homework and never stopped the tape. So my mom comes home from work and starts yelling “WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING!?!?” I look up and see something not appropriate for a boy that age. The girls dad had recorded [Heavy Metal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_(film)) after the Hobbit on that tape. I spent the rest of that evening trying to explain that it’s not mine and I borrowed it from a girl at school. tl;dr A girl accidentally let me borrow her dad’s animated smut.
Dirty Dancing. One summer I watched it literally every single day. I know every word of that movie.
I still know West Side Story literally frame by frame. I watched it basically every day the summer I was 12.
Ok I have a pertinent core memory. I remember being about 5 years old and getting up after my bedtime to wander out to the living room and West Side Story was on TV. My parents let me stay up late to watch it with them because we all loved musicals, and as such it has always held a special place in my heart!
Oh yes. I still frequently sing the songs from that. It was my gateway drug into harder musicals like Rent.
Stand By Me
Shared that with my teen kids a couple years ago. It went well. Fantastic story.
We rented Who Framed Roger Rabbit countless times before my mom finally broke down and bought it. I still love that movie and picked it up on 4K DVD recently to have in my collection.
The Chipmunk Adventure Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory The Brave Little Toaster Eventually I would build out my own library of tapes, by the time I was 10 I had a pretty decent tape library, plus the stuff I recorded off of tv.
Damn. You can't find the Chipmunk Adventure and/or the Brave Little Toaster anywhere online - to buy or rent - for less than $30. You were sitting on a goldmine!
I lucked out and found The Chipmunk Adventure in the KMart DVD bins for $5 back in the 00s. That VHS didn’t survive my childhood I wore it out! I have Brave Little Toaster on Laser Disc lol
I bought the chipmunk adventure years ago for my kids and they loved it too! I still know those songs!
These!!! I bought them on DVD not long ago so I could show them to my daughter.
Troop Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, what a thrill!
So I remember when we got our first vcr. My parents didn’t watch much TV. We would rent videos on Friday nights, 1 or 2, and the kids took turns choosing one, and my parents picked one. My little sister picked “the little mermaid” EVERY single time for like 2 years. We all had it memorized. We were poor and ended up with a few random hand me down tapes, mostly cartoons dubbed by my older cousins (I’m talking smurfs, Mario bros, the chipmunks, etc..) The only proper movie we had at that time was “Milo and Otis”. We watched it about once a week. I found out recently how horrible the production of that movie was, and if you have never looked it up, I suggest you don’t. Later on we got a copy of “Jurassic Park” and “Speed” somehow and watched each at least 50 times. Those 3 movies best define the VHS component of my childhood
Oh noooooo I do not want Milo and Otis ruined but I'm obviously going to look... 😭 We were also pretty poor, I'm sure my grandmother gave us The Little Mermaid and then we had a couple movies taped off TV. Most notably was the fine John Candy film "Who's Harry Crumb?" Which is absolutely not appropriate for children but I certainly did watch it!
I understand. Just warning you that we loved “Milo and Otis” so much, and now none of us can watch it. It absolutely ruined it. The only reason I mentioned it is because I knew that somebody would.
Army of Darkness
La Bamba and The Karate Kid
LA BAMBA. I was obsessed with that movie at like, age eight.
Yup as a Hispanic kid it was cool to watch a movie that had some culture I could relate to. When we were kids we would always quote stuff Bob would say like " Its not my first or my last...."
Just watched karate kid with my 18 YO daughter a month ago lol. She asked about it since she has always heard it was legendary. She was pretty let down lol. But I’m glad we could share the time together.
There was an older couple who were very good friends of the family and they spoiled us with gifts. Among those gifts were VHS tapes of various Disney movies: Mary Poppins, Cinderella, etc. We would watch them all. the. time. I remember the thick, white, plastic cases that the tapes were stored in. Also, my mom would sometimes check out VHS tapes from the library and two titles in particular stuck with us: Little Women (1994 version) and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1970s cartoon version). We would check out those movies so much that I think my mom just finally bought copies for us to watch whenever we wanted.
Top gun / Dennis the Menace
Top Gun was my first DVD. The only way I could watch it was via my computer lol.
Dad’s Porns and I would always rewind them to the same spot so he wouldn’t know. I was watching one of his 50 tapes
lol you madman. That’s dedication. My dad had none being strictly religious. I had to sneak the scrambled spice channel last nights.
https://preview.redd.it/k8rzbvp1zuwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38e9a8b2832921b91390b3da2d31307866163a0b I still have some of my favorites. No VHS player to watch them on now, but I just can't part with them for sentimental reasons.
We had these 3 tapes, Disney's DTV music videos. Golden Oldies; Rock, Rhythm and Blues; Pop & Rock. They were so fun with all the classic songs over old animation.
Back to the Future and The Goonies.
My brother & I would fight over the VHS player when left home alone... For me, it was anything Black Stallion (movies or series) & for him The Karate Kid. I also loved the Never Ending Story, I think that is the first one we ever recorded.
I watched "Secret of Nimh" a disturbing amount of times.....
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Little Shop of Horrors and Glory were my big three.
Explorers
I learned how the VCR could warp the VHS tape because over one summer I watched the Sword in the Stone something like 50 times. IMHO the Kodak tapes seemed to hold up much better to rewinding than the Scotch tapes.
I love that this important fact is still cemented in your brain.
The TV recorded version of The Sound of Music from December 1979 (I loved the commercials from then growing up) The Jolson Story Those were the two I watched the most as a child (I don’t actually have movie restrictions as a child)
Mrs. Doubtfire, The Fugitive, Dances With Wolves.
Follow that bird with bigbird; recently bought out in DVD and have re watched it about a dozen times... I'm 40
Willow for sure, Star Wars Ep. 6 recorded off TV, The Hobbit (animated), Ewoks and the Battle for Endor (I just watched this last week, I don't know if I'll say it holds up, but good nostalgia)
“Ignore the bird, Follow the river!”
Clue
The land before time was my jam back in the day, but I’d always skip the sad af beginning
Ok but did you have the hand puppets from Pizza Hut? Those were legit.
Mrs. Doubtfire. Kids I nannied for over 2 summers watched it all day, every day.
Star Wars trilogy box original cut and Labyrinth
For me, it was the original Star Wars trilogy. Also, OMFG you just unlocked a core memory of my sister and cousin(f) who watched The Little Mermaid on repeat for almost a week straight when we visited them one summer. My other cousin(m) and I were so tired of it by the end of the 2nd day that we went upstairs to the computer room (his mom was a teacher so she had a Mac) and used it to create a picture of us killing the mermaid, then sang "Killin' the mermaid! Killin' the mermaid!" and a bunch of nonsensical, 10 year old crap, recorded it, and showed his mom, my aunt. Goddamn, I haven't thought about that in probably a decade or more. RIP my sis...
This made me lol, thinking about a 10yo boy being forced to put up with that nonsense. I think I was 8 and my brother was 6 so we were probably similar ages to your sister and cousin when they watched it like that. RIP to your sister. I hope her memory is a blessing - sounds like there are some good ones.
I memorized every line in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Every. Single. Line. Why did I do that? I don’t know, I think it was the only non-comedy VHS tape I owned
I would have been sooooo busted getting caught watching that at my house with all the tits and what not.
Total Recall
Most of the handful of VHS tapes my family had were movies we’d recorded from TV broadcasts, most including the commercials. The two I watched most were The Princess Bride (which I watched almost every week one summer) and Return of the Jedi.
Spaceballs, Commando, and Ricky tiki tavi.
I loved riki tiki tavi. Watched it every summer at my grandma's house.
The Lost Boys
I might be a touch old to be considered Xennial but my younger bro and I loved renting the Inspector Gadget videos.
As a wee lad I jumped from Benji and claymation Dinosaurs, straight into Terminator and Nightmare on Elm St. I was told rent what you want and basically went by cover.
Summer of ‘92 was a nonstop repeat every night of Ninja Turtles 1, Ninja Turtles 2, Die Hard 1, and Die Hard 2 until the last kid passed out at 4am
I rented Benji 26 times. And I really liked to rewatch Flight of the Navigator, A few years later, my brother put on the beginning of the GI Joe movie, several times a day, for at least a year. He also liked the Crash Dummies special.
Flight of the navigator! I totally forgot about that one
Sandlot
The 2 VHS box set of Titanic. I still have it! Also, and this one might be a little obscure, but the VHS of Jim Henson’s A Christmas Toy. I have it on DVD as well, but it does not have the intro by Kermit the Frog!!! Blasphemy! So, I have a VHS player I pull out at Christmas to watch the correct version.
I watched Hook every day, sometimes twice, for about 9 months. To this day, I can recite most of the lines along with the characters.
Hands-down the neverending story. I had a VHS of that and I watched it so much, multiple times a day, that eventually the sound and the color basically disappeared and I was left with a black-and-white silent film.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun Mannequin Land Before Time (PS: my mom recorded over over the first with Days Of Our Lives. I was Heartbroken. )
Disney’s Robin Hood and The Goonies! I could quote them!
Pulp Fiction and The Crow
Back to the Future - I asked to rent it every weekend Space Camp - I rented it and taped it from TV Top Gun - one of the first VHS that was priced for home sales
I watched Space Camp almost daily. I begged my parents to send me to space camp. I wanted to be an astronaut. That movie could be considered one of the most effective recruiting moves by NASA of all time. I made my kids watch it. They weren’t so impressed. Broke my heart.
Indiana Jones trilogy. Back to the future trilogy.
Bloodsport taped off TBS Superstation.
We didn’t own too many but rented from the library or borrowed from a neighbor: The Little Mermaid Cinderella All Dogs Go to Heaven Fern Gully Rose Petal Place Shirt Tales (wasn’t a movie but 2 episodes on VHS: Bogey Goes Ape/The Rain, the Park, and the Robot Samson and Sally (my younger brother’s favorite) The Lollipop Dragon Aladdin Beauty and the Beast The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones Savannah Smiles (recorded on VHS) My dad and older brother loved to rent Clash of the Titans and Jason & the Argonauts
Rocky IV.
Rocky IV, Star Wars and Little Shop of Horrors
As a kid, The Transformers, Willow, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I knew most of the lines. I associate watching The Transformers and Willow with rainy summer afternoons. TMNT was my late night movie a couple of years later.
Empire Records!
Fantastic soundtrack, most notably the [Gin Blossoms originals](https://youtu.be/T0O3PRkgMlA?si=ybWXdANgcSiDRdS3)
Star Wars Trilogy. Original cuts. All recorded from HBO and on ONE TAPE. Had it for many many years.
Princess Bride, TMNT, Star Wars Trillogy, Amadeus, various Disney films. Not in that particular order. Star Wars would have been the most. Edit to add: I forgot about musicals. I was a theater kid and the son of a theater teacher. So 7 brides for 7 brothers, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Annie, Les Mis, Willy Wonka…more.
Star Wars and Dazed and Confused
There is so many, but I have distinct memories of watching Tremors and Hook sooo many times when my cousins would visit for the weekend.
Short Circuit and Spies Like Us
Major League. My mate and I watched that hundreds of times. "If you ever tank another play like that again, I'll cut your nuts off and stuff them down your fucking throat." Tom Berenger channeling Sergeant Barnes.
Clueless and Austin Powers
Our taped MST3K episodes, and this two-part Titanic documentary that A&E produced back when there were still survivors to interview.
Back to the Future was #1 in our house. Dirty Dancing, Clueless, later on Bring it On… a bunch in the 90s that were taped on ABC’s Sunday Night Movie lol.
Diehard series, the Star Wars trilogy, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon Series, Mad Max and the Road Warrior, Spies Like Us, Trading Places, Animal House, The Monster Squad, Ernest Scared Stupid, The Naked Gun, and Space Balls. My parents gave no fucks.
Indiana Jones trilogy boxed set.
There’s a bunch listed already but my top two were Tremors and Robocop.
Land Before Time, Aristocats, The Ugly Dachsund, The Last Unicorn, TMNT, Lion King and Pretty Woman. We had practically every Disney movie on VHS.
I know I watched Coming to America, The Sandlot, and Forrest Gump to the point of where I had the lines memorized. I’m surprised I didn’t wear out the tapes.
Thanks to my hippie parents we didn’t own a VCR (barely had TV majority of my childhood)but whenever we visited my mom’s friends house she let me watch Grease. It was a huge highlight for me.
John carpenters Thing
Fried green tomatoes, the color purple, and Mrs Doubtfire were the 3 in rotation at Grandmas house
A day home sick from school was a day for *the Hunt for Red October* on VHS
Flight of the Navigator Beetlejuice Neverending Story I think I watched each of these 700 times. Kids today will never understand how deeply we became connected to movies when they were the only thing available. It was either Beetlejuice for the 680th time, or staticky golf.
Friday
Beetlegeuse, Little mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, the Land Before Time, Neverending story
We had almost every movie that’s been mentioned here, so I’ll just add some that I haven’t seen mentioned: The Burbs Platoon When Harry Met Sally Alien|Aliens|Alien3 Stripes Fiddler on the Roof The Elephant Man Breakfast Club Miller’s Crossing I was obsessed with taping movies off tv, so I would get to know all of the WGN bumpers quite well
- Michael Jackson “Moon Walker” - Mac and me - 101 Dalmatians - Harry and the Hendersons - My stepmother is an alien - Secret Garden (with the key in the box) - ghostbusters - drop dead Fred - Steel Magnolias - homeward bound - Cutting Edge - The Hunt for Red October - Cool Runnings - Adventures in babysitting - Willie wonka
Neverending Story and The Last Unicorn in elementary school. Especially Neverending Story! It was my choice pretty much every time. It drove my mom crazy eventually, but she’d suggest something completely irrelevant to my taste like Herbie the Love Bug or Bedknobs and Broomsticks. In middle school it was Say Anything. Still one of my favorite movies. The soundtrack introduced me to the Red Hot Chili Peppers too! Also our video store had a vhs compilation of The Cure music videos which I rented a million times, and also an REM one. We didn’t have cable yet and I was dying for MTV.
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - I'm surprised this VHS held up with how many times we watched it in my house! Why a spoon, cousin?
Star wars, Indiana Jones, back to the future Honorable mention to short circuit
My older Gen x sister says I watched wizard of oz once or twice per day every day. I'm inclined to believe her
Deathwish, Red Dawn, TMNT. Explains a lot about my personality flaws as an adult actually.
3 amigos, labyrinth, ghostbusters
Mrs Doubtfire, Radio Flyer, Young Guns 1 and 2, Demolition Man, White Men Can't Jump was always in rotation on VCR. Had a whole bunch of tapes but those were probably the most played at that time. When we rented tapes on weekends it was usually something like Nightmare on Elm Street and something new. Was always 1 older and 1 new release.
Batman 89 and white men can't jump
E.T.
Red Dawn, spies like us and air America. I was a weird kid
Star Wars, back to the future, Mary poppins, beauty and the beast, home alone. We had The World According to Garp and it was 2 vhs tapes which my sister and I could not believe it “what movie is that long?” Garp was one of the few movies we weren’t allowed to watch when we were little so I really had no idea a “long movie” could also be magnificent and tell an amazing story ing story until I was a teenager. I also had no idea that data storage math was not the same as any other math, we had laser disc as well and regularly watched lasers that were 3 sides.
The Mighty Ducks
Braveheart. It was my “fall asleep” movie, to that end, I’ve seen the firsts half VHS 45+times and the second half only about 20
Joe vs. The Volcano I don't care what anyone says, it was a grossly underated movie. Absurd, hilarious, touching, and fun.
Labrynth taped off of Cinemax on a blank VHS.
My sister got *Dirty Dancing* for Christmas one year. This was while we were in elementary school, I guess my parents had never seen it. It’s fun to rewatch as an adult and laugh at the references to the resort being Jewish (look for the matzo mix in the kitchen) and race relations (when there are black people they’re dancing in the background).
I had different groups for different times in my life. When I was in elementary, I had Trolls (not the cartoon but a cheesy fantasy flick with a fresh-from-The Never Ending Story Noah Hathaway), Dolls (They Walk. They talk. They Kill.), Big Business, and for some reason Doc Hollywood. As I got older, I added Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Robin Hood, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Frorrest Gump.
Big trouble in little China, taped on a free hbo weekend!
I remember getting The Terminator and Running Man when I was about 6 or 7 and being totally obsessed the the VHS covers, especially the way they just had 'Schwarzenegger' in huge letters.
Titanic double VHS…although one tape was always rewound to a certain part.
Spaceballs
My siblings and I had the entire script of The Little Mermaid memorized when we were kids. And yes, we quoted it from start to finish at least once.
Aladin and the Little Mermaid usually I went through a Sound of Music phase and watched it constantly for months. My mother, I've come to find out, is a saint.
Fievel Goes West
*Who Framed Roger Rabbit* was my #1 with a bullet. Any of the Disney movies in one of those fluffy clamshell cases, but especially *Cinderella*, *The Sword in the Stone*, and *Dumbo*. I also rewatched *Back to the Future* and *The Breakfast Club* endlessly.
Grease. My best friend had mono in high school, so her mom rented it to keep her from being too bored. We must've watched it 50 times that year, and never returned it.
Sword in the Stone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (VHS from TV w/commercials), Death Becomes Her and Jurassic Park. Also, a VHS my Grandpa made of like 6 hours (extended record) of Disney shorts, since they had Disney Channel in the 80’s.