What’s your random VHS tape lineup?

Posted by 7askingforafriend@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 40 comments

My parents recorded so many random movies together from HBO, many times with the first few minutes cut off as they struggled to get the tape set up.

The most random one I remember is:
Maid to Order, Urban Cowboy and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (the last one taped over Star Man so it was a weird mixup of a minute of that movie before NLCV began, again minutes late into the movie). What’s yours? Bonus if there were multiple titles crossed out and written over!

[-]

StillhasaWiiU@reddit

Grease, Big Trouble in Little China, and Fatal Attraction on the same tape grandma recorded off HBO.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

That’s a wild one

[-]

Ryanookami@reddit

Grease 2, Taps, Poltergeist.

I remember when the pay channels would occasionally have free weekends to try and entice new customers. We would buy a 6pack of blank VHS just for the occasion and tape pretty much the whole line up.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

Wow I forgot about that too. I remember when randomly going through channels that’s suddenly a pay channel would work and being excited about those times

[-]

iwantmy-2dollars@reddit

Clan of the Cave Bear.

Like the legit, I think 2 tape?, bought it in a store and didn’t dub it on a free hbo weekend to memorex. Watched that way too young.

[-]

2nddeadestlennie@reddit

The jerk, legend, ghostbusters

[-]

Sweenbot@reddit

Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and ET. I vividly remember a velveeta commercial being on one of them.

[-]

silentsnak3@reddit

While not random really as it was planned.

When Starz came out with the Western channel back in the 90s, my dad recorded non-stop for weeks. When he passed we went through his collection. Every single movie, listed alphabetically, in rows of VHS holders, cabinets and on shelfs. He even had a binder with all the movies, who played in it and the director. My dad was a western nut if you could not tell.

I think he did that to build up his library of movies. And then cancel the channel but he never did. So IDK.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

I feel personally attacked because I’m close to doing this with DVDs. We didn’t appreciate physical media enough

[-]

I_AM_DEATH-INCARNATE@reddit

My parents recorded batman, with commercials and all. But the tape wasn't long enough so I never saw the end. I could watch until Joker showed up in a helicopter laughing. That was my ending growing up, it was like he won

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

Don’t worry. I didn’t know the beginning or ending of many movies for this reason.

[-]

worstnameIeverheard@reddit

I LOVE this question.

Splash + One Crazy Summer + the video for Peter Cetera singing The Glory of Love from the Karate Kid 2 soundtrack

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

Oh my gosh. Memory Unlocked for One Crazy Summer.

[-]

zenigmatic@reddit

Uncle Buck, on Golden Pond, Search for Spock

It was then my dream to have the back to the futures in order on one tape.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

That would’ve been elite recording skills

[-]

RadGnarly42@reddit

Hamburger The Motion Picture, then Missing in Action 2: The Beginning, then a straight up single X porn film about yuppie vampires, then Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird.

[-]

Full-March-4700@reddit

I was talking about follow that bird at work the other day. I was explaining it was a Sesame Street wacky races movie about big bird being kidnapped, everyone looked at me like I was insane.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

Yeah I sort of explained it like Smoky and the Bandits for kids with a kidnapping lol

[-]

RadGnarly42@reddit

Under-rated gem with some fun cameos. 😁

[-]

XFrankXGrimesX@reddit

This just reminded me how once or twice a year my mom would go by herself to visit her sisters and suddenly rented Linda Fiorentino movies would show up by the VCR. I really didn't need to know exactly who pressed my Dad's buttons.

[-]

Full-March-4700@reddit

I had one with Michael Keaton Batman, the first season of Fraggle Rock and honey I shrunk the kids on it.

[-]

7askingforafriend@reddit (OP)

This is chaotic 80s energy

[-]

RadGnarly42@reddit

Favourite film I had on VHS had to be the Canadian Television cut of Rock N Rule. Didn't know how good I had it.

[-]

New_Stats@reddit

We didn't do that. I think it's because my one aunt had a whole room full of stacks of VHS tapes, with nothing but soap operas on them

Kinda scared my parents away from it because of the hoarding ( my mom became a hoarder later on, so it was a well grounded fear)

[-]

sassyfontaine@reddit

I somehow have two copies of Pootie Tang

[-]

joshhupp@reddit

I digitized our old home movies Ava my wife has one that starts out as a drill team routine then smash cuts to WrestleMania

[-]

XFrankXGrimesX@reddit

My parents acted like HBO cost thousands a dollars a month and we only had cable because of ESPN. We did have "Major League" though so I can more or less recite that movie for you.

The "McLovin" of my crew knowing his parents were snoops would hide porno in plain site in the TV stand marked as kids movies. Then one day his dad thought "Flight of the Navigator" sounded like a good movie

[-]

Kiethblacklion@reddit

One of my favorite tapes was the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman made-for-tv reunion movies.

[-]

59apache01@reddit

Starting around 1985, I learned how to record from our top-load VHS. I'd record the entire Saturday morning cartoon time slot, commercials included.

They're still at my parents' house somewhere I think. I'd love to find them again one of these days.

[-]

Plumeria9798@reddit

The commercials included are so golden! I hate that I cut them out anytime I was also watching live. Who knew I’d want to see them 30 plus years later?

[-]

Plumeria9798@reddit

Recorded ones only?

I had Follow That Bird, which taped over the beginning of Pinocchio. Probably the first 10-15 minutes of it.

I definitely had a tape with Look Who’s Talking and Back to the Future Part 2 that was much beloved as well.

There was one my grandpa had made of various 50s era cartoons (started with a Woody Woodpecker, then a lot of Tex Ritter cartoons, then a lot of Goofy and Disney cartoons…like Goofy’s Olympics and something involving Donald and Daisy Duck in the tunnel of love.)

He also made a tape with Rudy, Philadelphia, and something else I don’t remember which I sadly never watched because at 11 or 12 I wasn’t interested in those so I promptly taped over it.

I had tapes upon tapes of I Love Lucy and I Dream of Jeannie and Casey Kasem’s year end Nick at Nite countdowns, but I’m not sure we are also talking about TV here. I had a ton of that taped off of TV and less actual movies. The Beatles Anthology, later, Passions, haha. In the late 90s and early 2000s I did start taping more movies but I don’t remember what they were. I had and still think I have I love the 80s and the sequels to those, plus I love the 70s and 90s as well.

[-]

Bershirker@reddit

I had one that was The Care Bears Movie, then into the made-for-tv Flight of Dragons (which we always wanted to watch), and then on the cable TV edit of Robocop. I didn't realize that there was a much more violent version until years later. Watched that tape about a hundred times.

[-]

qwerty-game@reddit

I just remember failing to unpause the tape after a commercial when I was recording Scooby Doo and the Boo Brothers. I missed a good minute of it and I was so upset I cried.

[-]

zenigmatic@reddit

Aww hugs. The trauma of a dj talking over my recording songs off the radio just came back

[-]

qwerty-game@reddit

The worst!

[-]

piscian19@reddit

Aliens, Star wars, UHF, Independence Day, Robot Jocks, Flight of teh navigator, Lion king.

[-]

violetstrainj@reddit

We had a huge set of “Cartoon Carnival” tapes, which were just bootleg Warner Brothers cartoons that my grandparents got us for Christmas. My parents didn’t know how to record on the VCR very well, and they wouldn’t let us do it, so most of our recorded VHS tapes were from relatives. We had “short circuit”, “land before time”, and “the elm-chanted forest”. We also had a bunch of religious and nature tapes, including “the Jesus movie” because my town tried to start a religious revival by sending out those tapes to every address in the county back in 1998.

[-]