[TV Party] What We Lost When We Lost VHS

[Ubiquitous]

Now that VHS tapes of once-popular movies are regularly seen being
sold at Goodwill stores for 50 cents each or, simply being thrown
away, it’s fascinating to remember just how very expensive these
tapes were when they first hit the marketplace. When pre-recorded
VHS tapes originally appeared in stores, it would often cost as much
as $70 or $80 a pop to own your very own copy of your favorite film.

No wonder, then, that rental outlets boomed for a time. But even in
the rental sphere, the apparent spun-gold value of the VHS copy was
never forgotten. I remember, in my home town, sometime in the
1980s, a local music store tried to get into the video rental market
but required every costumer to leave a $40 deposit for every movie
they took out of the store. The hassle (and, perhaps, the implied
mistrust) of the deposit seemed to dissuade many customers from
renting at all and, after just a few months, the store went back to
just selling music and the occasional movie.

VHS tapesEventually, as pre-recorded VHS tapes came down in price,
they also decreased in size. Remember? Originally, VHS tapes came
packaged in oversized cardboard containers, about the size of a
hardback book. Inside, the tape sat cozy in its own inner, molded
plastic protector. Eventually, these boxes gave way to the plastic
“clam shells.” Finally, we got down to the form-fitting, pull-
from-the-bottom cardboard sleeve—the better to fit on store shelves,
one assumes.

Recently I, in a short-lived binge of house cleaning, came across,
in a box under a bed, a small, and rather motley pile of old, pre-
recorded VHS tapes. Movies, concerts, TV episodes. While I would
like to say that I was saving them for a time capsule someday, the
truth is I had kept them because, when I buried them there, they
were the only copies for home viewing that I had that was then on
the market. If I got rid of them, I might never see them again.

Now, some years later, DVD is giving way to Blu-Ray and both are
giving away to the internet. I wondered, were any of these titles
available now on something that was actually, you know, playable and
viewable?

Turning to Amazon, I was thrilled to discover the odd little
thriller “The Kirlian Witness” from the late 1970s had made it to
DVD. I was happy as well to see that a couple of other far-from-
famous titles had also made it to the “new” disc format. Others,
thankfully, have migrated to Youtube or other online platforms.
But, others, it seems, have all but vanished. Among the titles I
lament the absence of are the fascinating 1985 TV movie “Of Pure
Blood” and a 1990 concert film by Rosanne Cash titled “Interiors.”

And apparently I’m not the only one missing some titles.

Via Facebook, I decided to conduct an informal poll on this topic
and it quickly resulted in a variety of beloved and surprisingly
not-so-obscure titles that, while once available on VHS, have never
made it to DVD or gone to Youtube, etc. Among those missing-in-
action: 1987’s “Siesta” (which featured Jodie Foster); 1970’s
“Entertaining Mr. Sloane”; and 1969’s excellent “Last Summer.”
(Some posters also noted that while a particular film might be
available on DVD, it only exists in a PAL version, an overseas
playback format unreadable by the US machines.)

Meanwhile, a quick Google search will turn up variety of sites with
a variety of lists with a plethora of titles that never made the
journey from VHS to DVD. These titles include 1983’s horror cult
fave “The Keep”; late ‘80s TV series “Freddy’s Nightmares” and
1991’s “Naked Tango.” A film’s stalling at the VHS stage is usually
related to the bankruptcy of the original supplier or issues with
music rights, or, as in the case of Disney’s 1946 “Song of the
South,” they have since fallen out of some sort of PC favor.

Recently, Loveantiques.com commissioned a list of the most rare and
valuable VHS tapes ever produced. If you have any of them, hang
onto them. Most are horror films eventually pulled from circulation
due to their graphic nature and resulting consumer complaints.

Now, a little history lesson….

VHS tapesThe first title to be released in the US on the VHS format
was an obscure Korean film titled “The Young Teacher.” That was in
1976. It was soon followed by a trio of far better known—and,
hence, more profitable--titles: “MASH,” “The Sound of Music” and
“Patton.”

The acclaimed crime drama “A History of Violence” was the last major
studio film ever released on the VHS format before everything
switched to DVD; that was in 2005.

So, that means that the VHS era lasted just short of 30 years. That
is almost three decades worth of product.

The emergence of DVD’s to replace VHS tapes is, obviously, quite
similar to the changeover from vinyl discs to CD’s which occurred in
the 1980s. Though a huge number of “catalog” titles were remastered
onto CD and sold, a huge chunk of our audio history was not.

Combining the 78 and vinyl eras, the pre-CD era was, approximately,
1898 to 1982. That’s 84 years! In a study commissioned by the
Library of Congress, it was determined that:

Only an estimated 14 percent of pre-1965 commercially released
recordings are currently available from rights-holders. Of music
released in the United States in the 1930s, only about 10 percent of
it can now be readily accessed by the public.

While the numerical difference between VHS titles being replicated
on DVD might not be as gaping (simply because the time frame is much
short), there is, without question, many titles that have no doubt
gotten lost in the shuffle.

Considering the titles I quickly found—in my own collection, among
friends and via a quick computer search—one has to wonder just how
much else of our entertainment (nee, cultural) legacy is being lost
as we continue to shift newer technologies.

And this issue just doesn’t pertain to B-movies. In fact, it
doesn’t just pertain to just movies at all. During the 29 years of
VHS manufacture, a wide assortment of titles, covering a wide
assortment of genres, were sold--children’s programming,
instructional videos, documentaries, and TV. (Additionally, the
high turnover and rapid production of “adult” films has meant that
many of its titles have, in the progression from VHS to DVD, been,
er, stiffed.)

It also doesn’t just apply to VHS either. Before VHS came to
dominate the market, two other formats were available to consumers—
Laserdisc and Beta-Max. The heyday of the Laserdisc (those big,
flat plastic squares about the size of an old vinyl record album)
was from 1978 to, roughly, 2000; that is 22 years. The first title
released on Laser was “Jaws”; the last was Scorsese’s “Bringing Out
the Dead.” The era of Betamax, as a home-viewing option, was,
approximately, 1975 to, again approximately, 2000; that is 25 years.

Though I don’t have any hard facts or titles, it stands to reason
that there were, as with VHS to DVD, there are some titles that came
out on Beta or Laser and never saw the light of day on VHS, little
lone DVD!

It is not just music rights or the like that is keeping many titles
out of accessible but, one assumes, the belief that a profit cannot
be turned on releasing these titles on DVD. And, granted, there
might be precedent for this. After all, if a title flopped on VHS,
why risk repeating it on DVD?

But, the advent of the internet and “the cloud” has made
availability and accessibility much easier and cost efficient.
“Physical” copies no longer have to be mass manufactured and sent
out to every store in the nation to reach the public. But, that
doesn’t mean that companies that own titles are going to,
necessarily, upload their properties if they aren’t given
encouragement to do so.

A case in point: once available on VHS but now seeming vacant from
any platform gone is any episode of the mid 1950s daytime series
“Stand Up and Be Counted.” A talk show of sorts, “Stand Up” brought
on real-life people who presented a personal problem and invited
that day’s studio audience to give them advice. For me, watching
“Stand Up” was a bit of a revelation. It was not that the problems
discussed were so scandalous or titillating. No, it was that the
audience was so bossy, opinionated and, frankly, rude. Though no
chairs or fists were thrown and no sort of “Jerry Springer”-like
name calling was not in evidence, the decorum (or lack thereof) of
this audience, in the supposedly more civil 1950s, showed that,
perhaps, when it comes to TV, we have not de-evolved as much as we
thought.

Now, the revelations of “Stand Up and Be Counted” may not be of
earth-shaking importance. But it does make one wonder what all and
what else gets left behind as technology continuously leap frogs
ahead and the world happily moves on in what we like to call
“progress.”


--
For the first time in 8 years, the presidential schedule is full and
doesn't start with "Private Lunch"

[Your Name]

In article <o6gggb$e8c$1...@dont-email.me>, Ubiquitous

<web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>
> Now that VHS tapes of once-popular movies are regularly seen being
> sold at Goodwill stores for 50 cents each or, simply being thrown
> away, it’s fascinating to remember just how very expensive these
> tapes were when they first hit the marketplace. When pre-recorded
> VHS tapes originally appeared in stores, it would often cost as much
> as $70 or $80 a pop to own your very own copy of your favorite film.

<snip>

Not really any different to anything else.

DVDs were over-expensive when they first arrived, now they're at least
half the price (plus bargain bin deals where you can get three DVDs for
$X). Blu-ray players and HD TVs are becoming cheaper now that 4K / UHD
is coming into stores.

In some ways it's the pure greed factor. Charge as much as they can get
away with for new technology and then drop the price to flog off
remaining stock when "nobody" wants it any more.

[wees...@sbcglobal.net]

rande...@gmail.com wrote:

> Wow! I owned about $6000 in laserdiscs and never realized they were square...

he was referring to the square envelopes they were stored in...