The VHS Era

During a time where mix tapes ruled, floppy disks were file savers, and the internet was still a mystery, personal collection of films were gathered on VHS format. You know, on actual tape. 

When all this was happening I was still a little tyke so naturally I had a pretty decent collection of cartoon videos. I still keep that collection.

My little collection is basically two groups : 1) the feature film videos, containing lots of Disney movie classics like Snow White, Cinderella, The Lion King, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, and many others. I also have non-Disney movies, like The Pebble and the Penguin, Balto, The Swan Princess, Casper, and one of my all time favorites..

Thumbelina!

while group 2) is all the cartoon shows, in which I was very much interested in the Winnie the Pooh series, Disney Cartoon Classics, Disney SING-ALONG-SONGS (damn you, Disney), The Tiny Toons, and a bunch more, but my definite loves were my Alvin and the Chipmunks videos.

I loved Alvin and his bros so much I kind of went through a phase during my childhood where I'd dress up as Alvin. I even have the print to prove it! I'd put on a rediculously oversized t-shirt and wear a crooked baseball cap on my head. No need for pants because they don't wear pants, do they? That's kind of concerning now that I think of it. Anyway, my favorite Chipmunks video was "Love Potion #9" which is basically a compilation of funny romantic love-themed ATC episodes. But all of their videos are fabulous, really.

Not all of my videos are from famous cartoon series' and there's this one video that I really, really loved to watch back then. I've watched it countless times and always get a satisfying kick out of it. I don't think this cartoon was even fairly popular but it's about a group of outer-space creatures that live on this pretty little planet. The characters are all based off the zodiac signs and they have all these adventures together. It may sound like the randomest thing - and it might as well be - but it's so cute. I LOVE IT.

The gang's called "Star Street". or was that where they lived? i forgot lol 

Not sure why the video's titled "The Happy Birthday Movie", although there is one episode in the video where someone has a birthday. I might need to do some internet research on this group of freaks because they're my favorites.

And since I was a very bright, creative, little girl, of course I was also a fan of the most well-known Dinosaur in the world...

When the Barney I knew was purple and did not wear any suits or seduce women

I watched Barney ALL THE TIME whenever it was on. If I wasn't going to be home when the show was on it would be recorded on tape. Yes, remember back when VCRs had that time record function and you could leave your blank tape in and it would automatically record your show on the time you set? That was so futuristic.

Also found this gem when I was rummaging through my collection :

That's right. SIX HOURS OF UNINTERRUPTED CARTOON BLISS. I can't believe my parents bought this for me. Maybe they just wanted to keep me distracted whenever I wouldn't sit still and bug them. But honestly, six hours? I remember I still used to watch this when I was older and didn't have anything better to do. I'd stay in my room all day and junk out on food. So fun.

The bad thing about having this awesome collection is that I can't really watch any of these anymore because I moved overseas and I don't have the proper pluggage to make the old VCR work (we brought that VCR with us!) like when I first moved here. I'm too lazy to go buy the thing and hook it up too. I was planning on moving all of my videos onto DVD format so I could enjoy them like a proper modern technology-era citizen, but my God the expense. 

Luckily, there's YouTube and people forever posting up old classic videos. There's also "that other option" to watching these videos but I'm impatient like that so I opted for YouTube instead. A couple of nights ago I stayed up  and watched Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Thumbelina. It was so great. It's funny though how you notice things that you didn't notice back when you watched the stuff when you were little. I realized things, like how pretty Snow's evil Queen step-mother really is and she shouldn't be threatened by Snow's beauty, or how the friendly swallow in Thumbelina seems gay. Maybe I'll do a watch-post on some of these oldies and share my thoughts online. 

I'm pretty sure this collection of mine was an early indication of my movie madness to come.

x Natasha