VCR'S

[VintageMike]

Our first was an RCA model. I used to tape Saturday morning cartoons and later wrestling.
I still have boxes and boxes and wrestling tapes commercials and all from the 80's. It was eventually passed on to be mine personally and it did die eventually. Pretty sure I still have the remote somewhere.

[BOTZWANA]

First movies I ever recorded were Watership Down on HBO and Jaws. Loved that thing! Then I moved to Mexico....WISH I could wander into a store and get old VHS tapes. I used to work at a video store too. Those box images are burned on my brain.

[4NDR01D]

I remember it was about $50 to rent a VCR for a weekend and you got about 5 movies with it. Mostly I rented ninja movies.

[HardyGirl]

Yes, I am the proud owner of 3 VCRs (2 are hooked together to make dub tapes). I remember the first one we had was when my older brother bought one for my dad when I lived w/ him. It was great. It was hooked into the cable so we could get extra channels. Money was tight, so we didn't rent videos, we borrowed them from the local library. I remember hurrying to finish chores on Friday afternoon so we could get to the library before all the good movies were gone. When my brother came to visit, he would bring his tapes. We used to watch stuff like Wargames, Superman 2, The Pirate Movie, Under The Rainbow...stuff like that.

[cjefferys]

We got our first VCR (VHS, I forget the brand though) around 1981, my dad paid around $800 for it. About a year later, he got a good deal on a Beta VCR, so now we could handle any format that the video stores had available. Then we got a brainstorm, "Hmmm, video out to video in...", bought some cables and starting building a video library from tapes we rented. Ah, the good old days. I still have a VCR and laserdisc player (and HD DVD player!) hooked up. It's nice to be able to handle nearly any format that comes my way.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

We still have 3 VCRs in our house, too. One is a VHS to DVD recorder from Sony and the DVD burner stopped working on it, so my wife and I just use it to record shows we want to watch. My mom bought our first VCR (Samsung) in 1987. The first thing I taped off of it was a Get Smart episode on our local independent station. I also remember being in an electronics store in NYC circa 1975 and seeing this huge deck that had a "dew light" that if it was on, I was told, you couldn't run the tapes because there was too much moisture in the system and the solution was to run the unit until the light went off. As I recall, my mom was interested in it then, until she heard the price.

[emeraldknight47]

I still have one lone VCR in my abode, just to watch some home movies that I shot back in the day and to peruse some "other" material not suitable to mention here (hey---don't be giving me that look, I'm sure other people here have some of that, too!!! ). I don't ever record anything with it anymore, but since I've been reading these posts, maybe it's time to try it!

[BOTZWANA]

I still have one lone VCR in my abode, just to watch some home movies that I shot back in the day and to peruse some "other" material not suitable to mention here (hey---don't be giving me that look, I'm sure other people here have some of that, too!!! ). I don't ever record anything with it anymore, but since I've been reading these posts, maybe it's time to try it!

What? Like Crocodile Blondee or Forrest Hump? Maybe Shaving Ryan´s privates?

I used to get such a kick out of the backroom titles. Our store in rural GA had softcore though. Never the hardstuff.

[Bruce Banner]

I remember our first VCR was a massive top-loading behemoth... can't recall the exact make or model, though.

But I do remember how GREAT the picture was for rental movies and stuff that had been recorded. No VCR we ever had after that matched it for picture quality.

And some relatives of mine even had a Betamax top-loader... now THAT was a great picture, too.

[Hector]

I don't miss the days of those overpriced VCR's and overpriced VHS tapes during its heydays.

Those early dinosaurs were like $799...and I still vividly remember paying $79.99 for a brand new VHS copy of RoboCop back in the day...man...crazy days indeed...

[emeraldknight47]

I don't miss the days of those overpriced VCR's and overpriced VHS tapes during its heydays.

Those early dinosaurs were like $799...and I still vividly remember paying $79.99 for a brand new VHS copy of RoboCop back in the day...man...crazy days indeed...

Oh yeah---when VCRs and tapes first came out, I remember being staggered by how EXPENSIVE they both were!! I think the Hollywood money machine had a LOT to do with that in the early days...

[Adam West]

The VCR to me was akin to the internet to a younger generation. I lived in a rural area so no cable and we only watched a couple of movies a year at the theater. I was stunned when my parents bought what was a top of the line Mitsubishi VCR (I'm guessing around 1984 for $800+). My parents did not make much money so this was a huge expense. We would drive 20 minutes away to the closest video store and a whole new world opened up to me. Thanks for bringing up the subject. That was a great blast into the past.

[jessica]

Such great stories!

I don't remember how much my mom and dad paid for their VCR or our first one either. It wasn't that pricey by the time we bought it...Our 2nd VCR was purchase on sale at Sears because we had a friend who worked in the electronics department and he got us a good discount. It was still around $200 or so. After about a year, when the warranty expired, we couldn't just throw it away...so we paid someone $250 to fix it. LOL!!

We still have it...the awesome thing about it is it has a super fast rewind. Remember those VCR rewinders so you could save wear and tear on your motor?

Our TV has a VCR built in. It still works. The annoying thing about that VCR is that it doesn't have a pause button.

[MIB41]

I still have a VCR in our bedroom. Now I have a DVD recorder/player that sits on top of it. But both are plugged up to play depending on what I want to put in when I go to bed at night. I always have to have something running on TV to sleep. I have all sorts of things I recorded from the 80's that I have never converted to DVD. Example: I have one tape that is literally videos running all day on MTV back in 1987. Now how's that for a nostalgia trip? When KISS unmasked back in 1983 I have that whole event recorded as it happened. I have Queen imported tapes and documentaries that have never been made available on DVD. Plus I have classic shows and movies I have never gotten around to buying on DVD or are not available yet on DVD. I have tons upon tons of VHS tapes. And guess what? I'm not throwing them out. If I can use them, I will. Of course my main viewing is mostly Blu ray for the big screen. But every format has it's place in my home. Hell, I still have a fully functioning cassette player still in the box with instructions! I freakin' saved everything. And my bud, Emeraldknight can stand witness to that.

[Earth 2 Chris]

In 1984 we got our cable, our first microwave oven, and our first VCR. My Dad must have worked over-time like mad that year!!!

The first VCR tape I remember buying was a Golden Book tape that semi-animated some He-Man story books. I was 9. I was expecting the Filmation cartoons!!!

Chris