The Joy And Nostalgia Of VHS Tapes
Before we had streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime, we had different ways of watching our favourite shows or movies, we currently have blu-rays but before that we had DVDs, with commentaries, separate menus, neat bonus material and sometimes the menus could be entertaining too (not that blu rays are bad, I just wish it wasn’t just one menu and it could be affordable for everyone, DVDs nowadays are bland and blu-rays have more bonus material, which isn’t fair for those that can’t afford blu rays).
However, there’s
one piece of home media we had before we had all those, there was another way
to watch our favourite movies or tv shows and they were called VHS tapes. They
may not have had menus, some didn’t have bonus material and you’d have to
rewind or fast forward to certain parts and to start again, which can be time
consuming, but I find that they have a simple charm that I tend to enjoy and
have some neat benefits I’d like to talk about today.
Trailers
VHS trailers
can sometimes be very entertaining, like if you owned any Pixar tapes (and even
on the DVDs) you’d see a teaser trailer for their next movies with clips that
weren’t even in the movies or different than their final cuts. Paramount would
include trailers for their family movies, including Popeye and Bon Voyage
Charlie Brown, while playing the song “Happy Days”. There were the Columbia
TriStar family entertainment trailers, including footage from Ghostbusters and
My Girl other even the family fun trailer where it shows some of your favourite
shows from your childhood like, Bear In The Big Blue House, Dragon Tales and Maggie
And The Ferocious Beast. My personal favourites would have to be the way Lyrick
Studios used to promote The Wiggles videos. They would show the logo, with a
voiceover saying, “Get Ready To Wiggle!” or “New From Lyrick Studios!” you’d
see the ticking clock that shows up at the beginning of Wiggle Time before
showing a song from the videos, Quack Quack for Wiggle Time, Hot Potato and The
Monkey Dance for Yummy Yummy, Dorothy Would You Like To Dance With Me and Romp
Bomp A Stomp for Wake Up Jeff and We’re Dancing With Wags The Dog for Toot
Toot! After the songs they would show the videos and/or albums the songs were
featured in and we’d get a variety of voice overs from, “Coming October 1999
from Lyrick Studios! Get ready to wiggle!” to “Coming from Lyrick Studios! Get
ready to wiggle!” to “Get Ready To Wiggle!” to “Now available on home video
from Lyrick Studios!” Gosh just looking at those previews makes me feel like a
little girl again and it takes me back to when life was simpler, plus I miss
the Lyrick Studios logo.
Soundtrack Promos
Another cool
thing I remember seeing mostly on VHS tapes, were promos that promoted the
soundtracks to the movies that you were about to watch, the mostly played
before the movie began. They would show who was singing in the soundtrack and
also who did the score too. These promos were seen on tapes like, Stuart Little
2, The Grinch (live action), The Parent Trap, Shrek, Lilo and Stitch and the
two live action Scooby Doo movies. They definitely were good enough to get one
excited to listen to the music and songs that played in the movie, to have a
good time and to maybe relive or recreate the movie.
Benefits
One of the
best things about VHS tapes is that if you have to stop the movie for whatever
reason, whether you were watching it with your class and it was time for recess
or to go home or if you were watching it at home and had to leave or anything
like that, once you put the tape back in, it continues where you left off, even
if you haven’t seen it in years, saving you the hassle of going to previews and
seeing the same scenes again while trying to go back to where you left off, and
it can save time. It can be especially helpful if you’re a teacher playing a
movie for your students.
Let me tell
you a story.
I remember
when I was almost done second grade, my teacher decided to let us watch a
movie, the choices were Shark Tale and Babe, the former got the most votes, (we
did watch Babe afterwards), we watched it on a VHS tape, and I’m glad we
watched it on tape instead of DVD because if any of you had Shark Tale on DVD
growing up, like I did, you probably remember the opening previews being
unskippable, you couldn’t skip nor could you go straight to the menu (the same
thing happened on the Shrek 2 DVD). If we did watch it on DVD, we would’ve
constantly had to see the Madagascar and Wallace And Gromit behind the scenes
trailer (love those trailers by the way but it would be annoying to constantly
see them again and again) and also when selecting the scenes we left off at we
would’ve had to see a certain part again admit could be an inconvenience for
some, so it’s great we saw it on tape and we could avoid the hassles and just
enjoy the movie. We even got to see the opening previews which were the same
DVD opening previews and even a brief Shrek 2 trailer. And its so cool it was
the summer before the first Kung Fu Panda came out!
Pixar Bonus Material
It may not
have happened in all of them but if you were lucky to have bought them, some
tapes included bonus material either before and/or after the movie and they
could either be just as entertaining as the movie itself or worth the purchase.
If you watched any of the Pixar films on tape, you probably remember seeing the
short films playing before the movie, most of them were the same ones that played
before the movies when they got released in cinemas like Luxo Jr playing before
Toy Story 2, For The Birds before Monsters Inc and Knick Knack before Finding
Nemo. Not only are these shorts entertaining showing how Pixar can shine at
using visuals to tell a story with little to no dialogue (with the exception of
Boundin before The Incredibles) but also you might feel like you’re seeing it
in the cinemas. Some of them had other bonuses, like how A Bug’s Life, Toy
Story 2 and Monsters Inc had outtakes play during the credits and they could be
very funny, you could also see the company play on Monsters Inc as well! There
was even some bonus closing material like the Woody’s Roundup Medley on Toy
Story 2, Mike’s New Car on Monsters Inc, the “You’ve Got A Friend In Me,” music
video and a behind the scenes of Toy Story on the Toy Story VHS (the 2000 Walt
Disney Gold Collection) or a Disney Cruise commercial on the Finding Nemo VHS
(something that makes me smile since I went on one last summer, and I got to
see Finding Nemo at a vintage cinema a week after the cruise). I do wish the
Nemo tape included the Exploring The Reef short and The Incredibles tapes
included Jack Jack Attack both after the movies. They were such great ways to
wrap up great viewing experiences.
More Bonus Material
Some other
tapes that were not Pixar included bonus material, like some Disney movies have
behind the scenes footage like Pinocchio and The Jungle Book, Harriet The Spy
had Rugrats music videos before and after the movie, Stuart Little had
bloopers, some even featured some music videos after the movies on tapes like,
The Emperor’s New Groove, Kate and Leopold, Madagascar and The Tigger Movie
(make sure you have tissues for that one) just to name a few. Plus, if you ever
saw the first two Shreks on VHS you probably remember certain music bonuses
that played on the DVD too. There was the Shrek In The Swamp Karaoke Dance
Party on the first movie and Far Far Away Idol on Shrek 2. However, there is a
bit of a difference, while on the DVDs, the bonuses played after the credits,
on the tapes they played before the credits (the bonus scene where Dragon tells
Donkey she had babies was shown in between the ending of the movie and Far Far
Away Idol on the tape). I remember when I used to watch the first movie on tape
at my grandparents’ place when I was a kid, and it did feel different seeing
the karaoke bit before the credits since I had the DVD back at home, but it was
still neat and now that I have the tape at home, I appreciate it even more.
Bumpers
Another
minor thing (which you could also see on DVDs), would be bumpers you see for previews,
home videos and of course, the feature presentations. I’m sure a lot of kids
who grew up in the 2000s remember the classic Disney bumpers with the film
reels, like, “Coming soon to theatres,”, “Coming soon to own on video and
DVD,”, “Now available on home video,” and “Coming soon to theaters from Disney
and Pixar.” Honestly, just looking at them really brings back memories from my
childhood, during the simpler times. Also, if you remember watching any
Columbia/TriStar movies or shows on VHS, you probably remember seeing the
different types of bumpers, like where they would show the two logos together and
you’d see words like, “Coming soon to a theatre near you,” or “Coming soon to
home video,” etc. Plus, if you remember watching paramount or nickelodeon shows of
movies on tape, you’d have these bumpers where a narrator would read the words
in a black background like, “Coming to Videocassette” or “Now available on
videocassette,” takes me back to the days of watching Blue’s Clues or Dora on
VHS. Another kind of simple bumpers I can remember is the DreamWorks bumpers.
If you remember watching any DreamWorks movie whether it was live action or
animated, you might remember seeing a bumper that just has a starry background
and the kid fishing on the moon, with words like, “Coming to Theaters Next
Year,” “On Video and DVD” “Coming Soon to DVD and Video,” and, “Coming Soon,”
they may seem a bit underwhelming compared to the other ones I mentioned, since
they’re silent, but I don’t know, something about seeing them feels kind of
neat, it was something I missed when their movies went to DVD only, starting
with Over The Hedge and forward.
It was also
exciting whenever the tapes would have bumpers that would let us viewers know
that there would be bonus material coming after the movie like a music video or
a behind the scenes video or a trailer, Disney especially shined at it, I’m
sure you remember at least one time you’d see a Disney bumper saying, “Join us
after the feature!” it would always be so exciting. You could see those bumpers
in tapes like, Mary Poppins (the 2000 gold collection), The Tigger Movie, Toy
Story 2 or The Princess Diaries. Some non Disney ones include, Annie, Scooby
Doo and The Cyber Chase, The Wizard Of Oz, the re release of Kate and Leopold
or Rugrats in Paris. It was always exciting, knowing there was more to come.
Home Video
It would also be neat whenever you would start the video,
you’d get some cool home video bumpers. Disney totally shined at them, whether
it was the Walt Disney Home Video logo with the red letters, with or without
sorcerer Mickey presenting, the golden letter with the fanfare, the starry sky
with the Walt Disney Home Entertainment Logo. Even before the movies would
begin, when they would play some of the classic Disney films like Cinderella,
Pinocchio or The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, they would show the Walt
Disney Masterpiece Collection or Walt Disney Classics, with Sorcerer Mickey
presenting the latter, and Tinker Bell giving magic to the former, they are
just so magical, and good ways to let the viewers know they’re in for a treat. Or if you remember watching movies that were
distributed by Columbia/TriStar home entertainment you probably remember seeing
the puff of smoke before showing the two logos and the words, “Columbia TriStar
Home Video,” my goodness, something about that feels so nice!
Feature Presentation
One thing you would never see on DVDs or Blu Rays were, Feature Presentation bumpers! Those could only mean one thing, it was time for the movie to start!
The ones that Disney showed had some sort of magic to it, whether it was the ones with the handwriting, or the film reel bumpers or the flash bang bumpers (though I can see and understand why some people were spooked out by it, it was pretty loud). Not to mention the logo that shows the castle, along with film reels for movies like Cinderella, Toy Story, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, and then they show the words, “Feature Presentation,” with the fireworks, it feels as magical as going to the Disney Parks. Sometimes, they could also have logos to match the movie itself, like on the 1999 VHS of Pinocchio, all the bumpers were Pinocchio themed, including the feature presentation bumper. If any of you readers had the 1998 VHS of The Little Mermaid, you probably remember the skits featuring two fish and Ariel herself, Jodi Benson, as they talk about the upcoming attractions and invite the viewers to sit back, relax and enjoy the movie as the Feature Presentation logo appears, a great way to start a true Disney classic, the movie that began the Disney Renaissance, thanks to Howard Ashman (rest in peace)
If there is
another company that was good at giving this signal, it was Paramount, who can
forget the fanfare while the announcer says, “And now, we’re pleased to bring
you, our feature presentation,” I know it might’ve scared some people, (I can understand why, the words do come
close so fast and the copyright warning stays and is silent for about a minute,
it can be haunting) but I personally feel nostalgic for that bumper, I saw that
logo every time I watched Blue’s Clues on VHS, and now whenever I watch
something like Harriet The Spy or School Of Rock, it gets me excited. Plus I
find the fanfare to be very catchy, let’s you know you’re in for a treat.
Coloured Tapes
Conclusion
Now it’s
true, that they’re not perfect, they usually play on full screen, so you’d miss
some things when watching, you have to fast forward and rewind them to get to
certain parts, which can be frustrating and time consuming, and some have no
bonus features. However, I find that the simplicity of them and unique charms
make VHS tapes an underrated gem. If you ever have the chance, go find a VCR on
eBay, or shop online, or maybe find it at a thrift store (make sure you test it
out before you buy it) and pick up some tapes (you can get those for very small
prices), it could take you back to your childhoods and remind you of the
simpler times. Feel free to comment your best memories and what you think about
VHS tapes, also, if you have a favourite movie you have on tape, please
comment!
As a bonus
here’s my VHS collection
Before I go,
I want to shout out another one of my favourite internet reviewers, Mr. Coat,
he talked about VHS tapes as well on YouTube, he has said some of the things I
said, please know I’m not trying to steal from him, I have been inspired by
him. I highly recommend you see his videos; they can be interesting and he has
a great personality, he’s very open minded and optimistic, which are great
qualities to have, especially in today’s pressuring society full of negativity.
Thanks Mr. Coat, you are awesome!
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