While Netflix has changed the way we watch movies at home making things more accessible than ever before and taking away all reason to ever have to leave the house again, it hasn't always been that easy. You didn’t get to sit down with remote control in hand, having the access and power of hundreds of movies at your fingertips. Oh no, you had to pre-plan! You needed to run out to the local video store early enough that all the newest releases hadn’t been picked over leaving just empty boxes taunting you of the great evening that could have been.
Obviously, I refer to the days after the Betamax lost the battle for at home movie entertainment and the VCR reigned supreme (my apologies if you were a Betamax family. I felt bad for them as a kid, how were you to know?). VHS tapes provided so many opportunities for entertainment. It was unreal, you could have this on demand at home? Who were the geniuses that even pondered this notion?!
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After getting your VCR all set up at home, you needed something to watch! There were so many options available to you. We were a library family. Not only does Defiance, OH have an absolutely beautiful library but in the 80’s, they also had VHS tapes you could check out, for FREE!!!! They were obviously nothing anyone anywhere would ever consider to be current content, but if you were good with children’s shows (Bedknobs and Broomsticks on VHS, my friends!) and other mildly entertaining options, you really couldn’t beat the price and the length of time you could check them out. In our family, it was a no brainer. But of course, there were also the video stores. The mecca’s of all things entertainment.
We had access to Blockbuster and a Family Video. As an aside, I think that Defiance’s Family Video just went out of business in 2020. That is NOT a typo, the closing of the business was blamed on the pandemic but the fact that in 2020 a video store was still operational is one part amazing and one part jaw dropping! Who was their target audience? Who were the avid video renters of 2019?!?! But I digress, these stores were a Friday night staple. I remember perusing the options with your family trying to agree on something. Finding just the right selection only to feel the bitter bitter disappointment of them not actually having any in the store. Running up to the haggard employee behind the check-out desk to ask in a hail mary of hope if they had one behind the counter that had just been returned? The answer there was always no, by the way. Then back to the shelves to try to re-muster the same level of enthusiasm for your second choice. Or just caving and agreeing with whatever old person movie your Dad seemed excited about. At least someone in the family wasn’t feeling the pain of movie selection defeat.
None of this continued to matter by the time you got home, got the popcorn and were ready to begin the movie watching pleasure. Grabbing the remote control to the VCR and stretching that cord as far as it would go to reach the closest chair so no one had to get up to start it or hit pause when the inevitable bathroom break occurred. Life was good!
Of course, you didn’t always go to the video rental store. There was a chance that you had some videos there at home, lovingly recorded off the television, advertisements and all. I did hear rumor that there were some families that while recording the movie would actually stop the recording during the ads so they could enjoy playback ad free. I’m not sure if this was urban legend or not but it definitely never happened in our house! Typically we would start recording and get the movie we wanted plus the next 4 hours of television after the movie ended, to record over at a later date, because we’d forget we were recording and never hit stop. Regardless, there you were with the need for instant entertainment and you had it! And with the fancy remote control, you could always just fast forward through the ads.
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The only thing better than this was when Showtime would offer its free trial weekends. As you might surmise based on the fact that we “rented” most of our VCR tapes from the public library, we did NOT pay extra for the premium cable channels like Showtime or Cinemax. Those were channels our cable box offered but the channel itself was scrambled. To be honest, sometimes the lure of the movie was so great and the wavy lines weren’t too jumpy that I would find myself watching a movie despite the scramble. But when these channels offered their free trial weekends, you had access to all their best content, scramble free for an entire weekend! That was when you pulled out any tape you had with some extra room on it or something bootleg that you were never going to watch ever again and set to recording these amazing pieces of entertainment. It was a boon. It was through one of these free weekends of Showtime and a sick stomach for Kristen (or was it?) that allowed for us to stay at home parent free for the evening. We recorded a movie we knew would never garner parental approval and hid that tape away for future viewing when we were home alone again. The best rated R movie to ever grace the screen in 1984 - Night of the Comet. It had it all. Sci-Fi, action, adventure, romance and AMAZING 80’s outfits and hair. In case you were wondering if this was the perfect movie for you and this year’s Valentine’s Day celebration, let me tell you, the answer is yes! With a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the undeniable love of 11 year old me, you can’t go wrong. If you pretend that you might get caught and in trouble by your parents for watching it, the added danger may go a long way also.
Whatever your plans are, I hope you treat yourself special because you deserve it. And don’t forget to Be Kind, Rewind!