Four Thrifted VHS Tapes!

Four Thrifted VHS Tapes!

Derek Laganelli

Last night I ordered up a few pizzas from my favorite local shop (shoutout to Burncoat Pizza, I recommend the BBQ Chicken) and while I was waiting for my pies to be ready, I took a quick trip down to my local Savers to see what was happening. Lucky enough for me they had just topped off their VHS section! I ended up walking away with four movies for the low price of $4.21, so let’s take a look and see what I snagged.

BATMAN FOREVER

Genuinely my favorite of the 80s/90s Batman movies, and I’d shout it from the rooftops if I weren’t so deathly afraid of heights. There’s a lot of reasons to love this movie, from Jim Carrey in his heyday, hamming it up as the Riddler, to Tommy Lee Jones absolutely losing his fucking mind in the weirdest rendition of Harvey Dent/Two-Face that we’ve ever seen. If you told me that these two had made a million dollar bet on who could play the zanier villian, I’d probably believe you.

The real star of the show however, is Val Kilmer as Batman/Bruce Wayne. The guy is just so goddamn COOL – everything he does is so calculated and just downright slick. I know most people really love Keaton’s turn as the Bat, but I really do think that Kilmer may have bested that version of the character in nearly every way…shame we didn’t get more movies with him!

 This movie is just so fun, with beautiful bright colors and huge 90’s set pieces you won’t soon forget. Underrated flick, well worth the $.99!

THE SIMPSONS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

This is somewhat of a Grail for me personally. I know it’s not some super ~*rare*~ Giallo movie or something like that, but quite frankly I’d take this Simpsons tape over some Mario Bava movie any day. What we have here is the first ever, full episode of The Simpsons, simply titled “The Simpsons Christmas Special” (also known as Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, if you’re looking to stream it).

I’ve probably mentioned this a million times before, but The Simpsons holds a real special place in my heart. I’ve always loved animation and cartoons, and this show was one of the first ever ‘adult’ things I was ever allowed to watch. One day when I was about 6 or 7, my dad brought me home this really sweet 3 tape ‘Best Of’ set, and I was immediately head over heels for this show.

Side note, idk how many kids used to get excited when they would see video games being represented in movies or shows, but I would go absolutely BAT SHIT for them - regardless if they were real or fake. The boxing game (inspired by Punch-Out, no doubt) featured in an episode of this best of set is one I’ve always drooled over. Attention programming enthusiasts: please make a playable version of this, I will give you my life savings!

Anyways, wow. Yeah. The Simpsons Christmas tape. Very cool, glad to have it in the collection and again, for .99 it was a no brainer!

PEE-WEE’S PLAYHOUSE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

Apparently it was a big day for Christmas themed tapes! There’s not a bunch to say here, it’s a Pee-Wee Herman Christmas Special...what’s not to love? I will say, I really do love the cover art on this tape. Having Pee-Wee sit on Santa’s lap just makes sense here. The DVD copy I own shows Pee-Wee in a sweater & winter hat, outside in the snow and while it’s fine, Santa really sells the whole Christmas Special angle. Duh.

I have to admit, this isn’t a special that I grew up on. Believe it or not, the first time I even attempted watching this was maybe 6 or 7 years ago on Netflix and I didn’t really love it the first time I watched it. Of course, it was about midnight on Christmas Eve and I was drunk on Glogg so I don’t know if I really knew what the hell was going on.

I’m happy to report that I DID give this another shot a couple years ago and boy, was I wrong. This is a really quirky, offbeat Christmas classic that deserves a yearly watch. Happy to finally have it on this old ass format!

BACKSTREET BOYS: FOR THE FANS

This is the last tape I picked up and I’ll admit, I had a real internal battle at the store over this one. To say that I was more of an *NSYNC kid than a BSB kid would be an understatement. You see, some kids - normal kids - back in the day could be a fan of pop in general. They’d root for *NSYNC, BSB, hell, even that Nick Lachey band probably. Not me though, it was *NSYNC or it was nothing, and those brave enough to tell me why they liked a Carter brother better than JC Chasez would have gotten an earful.

Thank god for character development, am I right? While I’ll still defend the ‘SYNC until the day I die, I’ve mellowed out a tad. At least enough that when I saw this .99 tape, I was able to overcome my personal biases for a moment and just appreciate what that moment in time meant for pop music and to 6 year old me. Also, Justin if you’re somehow reading this, just text Lance back dude.

Well that’s going to do it for this first installment of Thrifted VHS Tapes! I plan on getting out & about more and doing these articles on a regular basis. Check back in a few months to see if I kept my word, I guess!