Moomies!!
Grab some popcorn and your Slushies!
I know a lot of you have a puzzled looked on your face at the title of this article. Blame my mother for that! When I was little my mom would ask me if I wanted any moomies from the video store (my mom is one-of-a-kind). I would of course say yes and ask to come along. We would hop into that Blue Chevy Lumina
That car was awesome!
We would drive downtown to a small brick building next to Patsy's Just Class Salon. We would walk up the wooden platform opened the doors and I got my first smell of popcorn.
Butter or Salt?
I walked in and saw a huge library of videos (VHS tapes!) of every genre you can thing of (including porn). I would run around in the horror section, adventure, action, fantasy, drama and just grab all the little tags that you would bring up to the cashier and they would go and grab the video in it's black case with a white sticker on the front with the store's name and the title of the movie. They had a special too where you can get 3 movies for 3 nights for $3.99. That there was enough for a little 7 year old to go crazy! Not only did this place have thousands of videos, they had CANDY, SLUSHIES, and CARAMEL POPCORN! They would also have confetti popcorn during Halloween.
As we come to present time for a brief second, I looked through the forums and saw that a lot of people have Netflix now and McDonalds has those Dollar Movie machines in front of the stores. Wait! I didn't have that. I didn't have the lazyness of just going up to a machine or just picking a movie with the click of my mouse or button on my controller. I had to get up, walk, and actually pick out by going down isle after isle. I miss the actual feeling of getting up and exploring the fun of finding my movie for the night.
So, as we go down the road to Nostalgia, keep in mind of the good times as a kid when you would be so excited to see a movie that you have watched over hundreds of times and basically ran into the ground from rewinding it again and again.
Retrojunkies, grab your remotes and hit play; I give you
Movie Rewind
Be kind, please rewind!
This is going to be a huge list since there are so many movies I watched when I was kid but I am going to name a few that I would get over and over again.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
I wore out my copy of the movie so I would always have to run to the video store to make sure it was still available on Friday nights. Friday nights were the best part of my weekend. My brothers, mom and dad would gather in the front room, with our Pizza King pizza (Royal Feast and bread sticks, YUM) and sodas.
Michaelangelo would be so proud of us!
With the beginning of the movie with the kids stealing everything from electronics to wallets it set the mood and it reeled us in as we gathered pizza sauce in the corners of our mouths. I love this movie as much as my brother did with all of his action figures sitting there watching along. After the movie was over, we were told to go to bed as my parents were falling asleep watching the movie for the one millionth time. That movie never gets old for me and still hasn't.
Total Recall
This movie scared the crap out of me in so many scenes but I couldn't get enough of the movie. I would consider this to be my first gory flick as a young kid. Even before the movie began you saw the preview for T-2 as I would cover my eyes or leave the room until that preview was over with "I'll be back." I knew that Arnold would since I would have to rewind the movie to watch it again. Ugh those eyes. The movie was gory, out of this world and was funny all the same time. I love the scene of the lady going "TWO WEEKS!". Cracks me up to this day.
Anyway, the place I would always be would be on the couch with my stuff animals for comfort when I got creeped out by something in the movie. I still like all that weird crap that they used.
Power Rangers on VHS!!
And so it begins! I was a fan of the show and when I couldn't watch it on FOX I went down the street and grabbed 3 movies with 2-3 episodes on each tape. With my slushie in my hands I would plant in a chair or be on the back porch eating my spaghetti oh's or raveloli (YUM!) and engorge myself with the wonder of pasta and Power Rangers beating down the thugs! Ever since the beginning I wished that Jason or Zach would just kick the living shit out of Bulk and Skull; neither one were worth even a minute on that show (but that's my opinion). I watched every single episode and the video store had maybe 7 videos of the episodes. I wore them out! I came in at the store (the video people knew me by name, let me just put that in here) and they told me 2 of the videos were torn due to the usage of the tape and that those two are not available anymore. I was so heartbroken but I switched around when I found out another several videos with episodes.
That car was awesome!
We would drive downtown to a small brick building next to Patsy's Just Class Salon. We would walk up the wooden platform opened the doors and I got my first smell of popcorn.
Butter or Salt?
I walked in and saw a huge library of videos (VHS tapes!) of every genre you can thing of (including porn). I would run around in the horror section, adventure, action, fantasy, drama and just grab all the little tags that you would bring up to the cashier and they would go and grab the video in it's black case with a white sticker on the front with the store's name and the title of the movie. They had a special too where you can get 3 movies for 3 nights for $3.99. That there was enough for a little 7 year old to go crazy! Not only did this place have thousands of videos, they had CANDY, SLUSHIES, and CARAMEL POPCORN! They would also have confetti popcorn during Halloween.
As we come to present time for a brief second, I looked through the forums and saw that a lot of people have Netflix now and McDonalds has those Dollar Movie machines in front of the stores. Wait! I didn't have that. I didn't have the lazyness of just going up to a machine or just picking a movie with the click of my mouse or button on my controller. I had to get up, walk, and actually pick out by going down isle after isle. I miss the actual feeling of getting up and exploring the fun of finding my movie for the night.
So, as we go down the road to Nostalgia, keep in mind of the good times as a kid when you would be so excited to see a movie that you have watched over hundreds of times and basically ran into the ground from rewinding it again and again.
Retrojunkies, grab your remotes and hit play; I give you
Movie Rewind
Be kind, please rewind!
This is going to be a huge list since there are so many movies I watched when I was kid but I am going to name a few that I would get over and over again.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
I wore out my copy of the movie so I would always have to run to the video store to make sure it was still available on Friday nights. Friday nights were the best part of my weekend. My brothers, mom and dad would gather in the front room, with our Pizza King pizza (Royal Feast and bread sticks, YUM) and sodas.
Michaelangelo would be so proud of us!
With the beginning of the movie with the kids stealing everything from electronics to wallets it set the mood and it reeled us in as we gathered pizza sauce in the corners of our mouths. I love this movie as much as my brother did with all of his action figures sitting there watching along. After the movie was over, we were told to go to bed as my parents were falling asleep watching the movie for the one millionth time. That movie never gets old for me and still hasn't.
Total Recall
This movie scared the crap out of me in so many scenes but I couldn't get enough of the movie. I would consider this to be my first gory flick as a young kid. Even before the movie began you saw the preview for T-2 as I would cover my eyes or leave the room until that preview was over with "I'll be back." I knew that Arnold would since I would have to rewind the movie to watch it again. Ugh those eyes. The movie was gory, out of this world and was funny all the same time. I love the scene of the lady going "TWO WEEKS!". Cracks me up to this day.
Anyway, the place I would always be would be on the couch with my stuff animals for comfort when I got creeped out by something in the movie. I still like all that weird crap that they used.
Power Rangers on VHS!!
And so it begins! I was a fan of the show and when I couldn't watch it on FOX I went down the street and grabbed 3 movies with 2-3 episodes on each tape. With my slushie in my hands I would plant in a chair or be on the back porch eating my spaghetti oh's or raveloli (YUM!) and engorge myself with the wonder of pasta and Power Rangers beating down the thugs! Ever since the beginning I wished that Jason or Zach would just kick the living shit out of Bulk and Skull; neither one were worth even a minute on that show (but that's my opinion). I watched every single episode and the video store had maybe 7 videos of the episodes. I wore them out! I came in at the store (the video people knew me by name, let me just put that in here) and they told me 2 of the videos were torn due to the usage of the tape and that those two are not available anymore. I was so heartbroken but I switched around when I found out another several videos with episodes.
Sailor Moon
Ya know it!!! Yes, I was a fan! Yes, I role-played. Yes I had little costumes and little weapons made. Of course my character didn't show up until the Super S series (Sailor Saturn!). But I sure did love the series. I would go over to my friends house just down the road and watch them with her while we hate Twinkies and cupcakes her mom made. They had the sailor scout symbols on them. She knew when I was coming over to make cupcakes with the scouts symbols. I love her to death because of that (she also made me hyper as a bouncy ball). Me and my friend Emily would sing along with the theme song "Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight. Never running from a real fight, she is the one name Sailor Moon!" We would also act out the fighting moves like Sailor Uranus's "world shaking" move or Jupiter's thunder move. Oh, wow I want one of those cupcakes.
Pee-Wee's Playhouse!
By far one of my favorite vhs/episodes to rent. I would love to watch him on television but soon he was gone from air (the whole theater thing) but my video store still had his episodes to rent. I believe the owners had at least 6 VHS tapes of the show. I rented this all the time. I love to watch Pee-Wee make Ice-Cream soup, prank phone call on a Rainy Day, and watch him recoup from Getting A Cold. I watched the Roxy show he starred in 1981; I had Big Top Pee-Wee and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I'm sorry, I guess I really liked to watch his show and I know I'm not the only one. I would have Ice Cream and Chocolate syrup or Strawberry syrup when I would watch his shows. I even tried to order them went hey were broadcasting across the T.V. with the 1-800 number. Unfortunately they didn't take orders from a 6 year old and that I would have to have mommy or daddy call back to place the order. I tried; didn't happen. I did have a great time when they were still available to me through the video store.
My Girl
My mom picked out this movie for me when I wasn't able to get down to the video store. She brought me back some Pee-Wee and Sailor Moon but she also got this movie for me. I thought it was stupid and that it wasn't anything related to Power Rangers and all the other animation I watched. She popped it into the VCR and I watched it and fell in love with it. Of course at the end when Thomas J decided to die in the woods because of bee stings (sorry I didn't mean to spoil), I ran into the back porch and cried "He's being stung by bees! WAAAHHHH!" They had to tell me that it really didn't happen and that the kid was ok. I don't know but that was probably the first movie that ever made me cry. Found out later when Jack was in the cold water, I found another tear jerker, then The Notebook and so on. But I loved the entire era of the movie; the 60s were so fun! I saw the styles of clothes, hair, glasses, cars, bicycles and what kids did back then; it was almost a great way to spend a summer because there was always something to do. I loved Veda when she found out she got her period; "I'm Hemorrhaging!". That movie always kept me wanting to go outside, ride my bike, and cherish my friendships that I already had.
My god, that whole description sounded like something off of Life stories: Families in Crisis.
Rock-A-Doodle
The cool sounds of a rooster with a rock-n-roll flare, almost like Elvis. I love this movie. It got my feet moving and I usually would end up dancing to it. My mom caught me one time and I just looked back and said "What? I wanted to dance, Mom." She told me that story the other day to my husband (anything my mother tells my husband of days when I was a kid, gets me red in the face). All my husband did was smile and say "You were crazy before I met you!" (smart-ass). Eh, so maybe I was? I have a lot of fond memories. Anyways, this movie was never rented before I got to it. I basically wore that thing out. The scratches on the cover, pieces missing, tabs out of place; yeah that was all me and the owners knew it.
Barbie and the Rockers: Out of This World!
GAH! Yes, I rented it and yes I had it on VHS and when it went out the door, I got my friend's tape and watched it. Then it died and then I went to the video store where I wore out their ONLY copy! I also had Barbie and the Sensations where they go back in time to the 50s. Looking back on it now, I didn't realize how bad the acting was in the cartoons. All I really cared about was singing, dancing and watching Barbie have on amazing outfits. I tried to imitate them by miss-matching some clothes, dying and cutting them to make them even better. It turned out to be big mess and I was covered in bleached fake-hair from cutting her hair to blue, red and orange dye from coloring both clothes and hair. I did succeed in getting orange streaks but I washed it and it blended all into her hair. Barbie and the Rockers got me into the "groove" of all her songs. She did one that was called "Catch me if you Can" that was basically like a theme song for them. There was also "Best Friends" "Do you Believe in Magic" and "Everybody Rocks". Lots of oldies that even my mom was singing to them. I was memorized that my mom knew the same song that Barbie was singing. Like I said, I was gullible.
As the years went by, the store did move to another location that was bigger and had enough space to introduce renting video games from NES, SNES, Sega; you name it. Back in '99 I also rented a movie that at first I was very confused about but the cover seemed pretty intriguing.
American Beauty
All I knew at the time that it was about a guy who had a crush on a 17 year old. I thought the movie was about basically a guy who was miserable with his life and wanted to do something exciting, I guess. At the end of the movie, I was pretty confused and didn't really like it. Luckily, I picked it up again when I was 18 and re-watched it. I understood the meaning behind it and I felt really sorry for the character Lester. A lot more of different emotions and character feels were also brought up when I watched it again. I fell in love with this movie and so did my husband when I found he was a fan of the movie. Given it was in the 00s when I re-watched it again, but the memories I have of it and how I compare it to my lifestyle and what I've dealt with, it brings up more than just renting it from a local video store.
With that list, I have come to the end of my little memory. Later on in the 00s the video store did move again (more space) but I think was bought out by the car dealership for extra space (idk) but soon the store did close down before I could even apply to take a job there. If I could I would love to get that store running again. I would have it at the original place, popcorn, slushies and the wonderful collections of movies to offer to new generations, hoping that one day they will write an article about how well they remember the video store. Currently that space is up for rent but with my current standing, I wouldn't be in town for too long. I am glad though I got to be apart of history with that place since it was there for almost all of my childhood years.
Even when I went to the beauty salon next door, I could faintly smell the butter they used for the popcorn. I guess it's in the wooden floors. Something is still left there from that video store that made me lose my track of reality for hours at a time.
What was your fondest memory at a video store? Was there popcorn sold too or slushies like mine? What did you rent most of the time when you had the opportunity to go to the video store?
I've lead you down the road to Nostalgia, now it's your turn.
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