The great VHS hunt of 1995
I've recently had to go into old man mode to explain to my 2 boys how frictionless they have it when it comes to accessing movies and content.
Immediate tangent: in many ways I feel bad for them as the 'broadcast' generational experience doesn't exist anymore. Sure, there are some major commonalities but chances are by the time my son is in his 20's and he asks 'remember this?' to a coworker they will have no idea what he is talking about because they had a different netflix algorhythm and youtube feed. Where as I can mention USA 'Up all Night' or Silk Stalkings here and it's common ground obscurity.
Anyways... My kids frequently want movies that just got released in theaters to be streaming immediately. 'When is Hoppers coming out?' 'When can we stream Michael?' etc. Instant gratification is needed to press the play button.
Uhhhh.... What? (Butthead voice)
Hey little whipper snapper - let me tell you how it went down back in my day:
Movie comes out in theater -- gotta get there early or risk not sitting with your group or be looking directly up at the screen in the front row.
Movie makes it to the 'cheapies' 3 months after it's had its run in the regular theaters.
Odd period of time passes, usally 3 months again where you can't watch the movie anywhere because they are demand planning and manufacturing the rollout to VHS.
VHS comes out, you are either begging mom to take you to more than 1 location or working that phone book calling multiple locations if they have the movie you want. Oh they don't? Let me just camp out near the drop box and frequently ask if I can dig through them or if the person dropped it off.
note: Savvy ones know when returns were due and show up 30 minutes before that time to make the nagging efficient. In ideal situations, the clerk would look it up and say "yup I show 3 are due back in today so if you just hang tight for the next 2 hours you might get lucky"
- You get the movie and chances are you are so excited you watch it 3 times before you have to bring it back. IT becomes 'news' to your friends.. 'hey I got Independence Day - you want to come over and watch it?!' ...Immediate bliss
And nothing, nothing will beat the exhiliration of seeing if a movie was behind the box to just make it a clean sweep. Otherwise, the opposite can be awkwardly staring at what other people are looking at and grabbing random videos just to hold onto as backups in case you come up empty.
Ooofff we had it good. I think I enjoyed Braveheart so much more because it was an odyssey in itself just getting the damn thing.
Anyone have any good one off memorable stories chasing a movie down?
Cheers!