Oooh! That reminds me, I also had some movies taped off TV. Fun and Fancy Free was one of them. I think my older brother taped that one for me but he didn't catch it from the beginning. The recording started when Jiminy Cricket was next to record player and observing the downcast doll and stuffed bear. The first time I saw that movie's opening credits and prologue was when I bought the UK DVD in 2006 or so.Ames wrote:You're not alone; besides "bargain bin" ones, my movies were recorded from TV or rentals; whichever came first, Fantasia or B+tB, was my first actual store-bought movie (besides said bargain bin ones).
I also had Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her taped off TV. However, it was the Italian dub of the film. Since my country is Italy's immediate neighbour to the south we have always been able to tune into the major Italian TV channels via our rooftop antennas (RAI, Mediaset, etc.). Italian TV shows and Hollywood movies dubbed in Italian would have been many persons' regular diet here. And yes, I know dubs are usually looked down upon, but the Italian dubs are different. Those guys are experts. You watch an American film in Italian and you forget you're listening to a dub. And Death Becomes Her was absolutely hilarious in Italian! I love Meryl Streep, but I daresay her Italian dubbed voice is even funnier than her original performance. It is truly remarkable.
I know we have a couple of Italian members here but they rarely post. I'm sure they'd back up what I wrote.
Now that we're on the subject of home video, there's something else I'd like to share (though it is woefully off-topic!) When I joined this site I remember reading that both Make Mine Music and Melody Time were given home video releases only in the late 1990s and early 2000s. So, when I got them on DVD back in 2006 I expected both films to be completely new to me. This was true of Make Mine Music, but not of Melody Time! As I watched I realised I had seen this movie before, many many years back when I was still a toddler. I also remembered clearly that I'd seen it off a rental VHS tape (which was rented frequently as I loved it to bits!). I recognised all the segments, from Once Upon a Wintertime, to Little Toot, to Pecos Bill, and even Trees.
But, how on earth could I have been watching this film in 1992 when it supposedly got its first official VHS release quite a bit later? Could it be it got an early release in Europe? To muddy things further, one of the segments I also remember being on that tape was The Old Mill Silly Symphony from 1937! Prior to getting the Silly Symphonies Disney Treasures set I always had this vague memory of an impressive animated short of a windmill battered by the elements and wondering "What was that film? Was that real or did I make it up?"
I even have proof of this rental VHS tape of Melody Time. When I was three years old my eldest brother purchased a camcorder and decided to shoot a home video (mostly centred on little me.
) In that video, I can be seen grabbing that very tape and inserting it into my beloved Graetz VCR (I loved that machine like it was a living person, lol). On the TV screen you can see the start of the Johnny Appleseed segment, complete with audio. This is in 1992!I would love if somebody would shed light on this mystery.
So did I!farerb wrote:I had a pirated VHS of The Little Mermaid until I bought it when it was rereleased in 1997/8.
However I never had any legit VHSes. It was only with DVD that I first started collecting the real stuff.To further elaborate on the piracy thing ... this was not a case of bootleg releases which you bought believing to be the genuine product. As the consumer, you knew perfectly well what you were buying. You either did so from an open-air marketplace in the capital city (that's where I got my Independence Day VHS) or you "ordered" your movie from the video rentals store. I remember my mum would the visit that store and ask for two new Disney films. The store proprietor would then use the legit rental tape of the movie and copy it to a blank VHS tape. Since Disney films were on the short side she would usually use a 2.5 hour tape and include two movies. I had one which had two features as well as The Prince and the Pauper to round things off - all on a single tape!
This may seem scandalous to the rest of you, but it was very commonly accepted here at the time. I don't think anybody felt "guilty" or that they were breaking the law by doing this. Perhaps the reason for this was that the police did not really do much to combat piracy, so there wasn't much awareness. Still, even it was illegal, I have to say I probably would not have had any movies on VHS if there wasn't that option. My family could not afford the real stuff.
Of course, piracy didn't die out here after VHS went bust. DVD piracy runs rampant to this day. Both the Sony PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were heavily pirated, as were PC and MS-DOS games on floppy, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. And of course the 8-bit computer systems from the 1980s like the Commodore 64 also suffered from this (duplicating games on cassette tape was too easy!
) However, I am aware that one was very common in other countries too.And let's not forget music! I still have many old "mixtapes" recorded on TDK cassettes predating my birth in 1989. Only these mixtapes were not homemade. You'd got to a shop and give them a list of songs you wanted on tape. They would grab their vinyl LPs and singles and tape them for you. Completely illegal, of course, but it was considered so normal that when the tape came back from the shop, the owner would stamp the name of his business, physical address and telephone number on the cassette tape's J-card! That was the 1980s in Malta.
By the way, this shop in particular still exists (it's situated a 20 minute walk away from my house) but I doubt they are still taping music for their customers.
It is a hi-fi store (it always was, but dabbled in the dark arts before. 
)Anyway ... to get back on topic I'd like to share with you guys the original graphic representing the Golden Mickey statuette we used in the UD Awards of yore.
I remember being bothered by the statuette's black outline and so created my new and improved version using MS Paint.
Eventually I felt I needed to create a special one in honour of Loomis.
It did not catch on!
I remember blackcauldron85 writing something along the lines of "That is wrong on so many levels!"
Years ago I really was quite oblivious to the fine line that separates a good, decent joke from a bad, tasteless one.
That would certainly explain my familiarity with the film in 1992. And it is marked as a rental tape, which makes further sense.
