History Lesson: The VHS and Laser-disc Era

"Hey dude, can I get a copy of Episode 16 of Prison Break from you?"

"Sure, just gimme your pen drive!"

How easy it is to actually get movies, music videos and TV series for free nowadays. You simply copy them from your friends through your trusty flash drives, store them all into your hard disks and watch them through your notebook. Back in the 80's and early 90's, getting 2 half-hour episodes of Transformers would have to be droppin to the nearest Video Cassette store and purchase those big black cassette tapes in bulky plastic covers (which made them extra heavier). They used to cost about $20 a piece.

I used to have this favorite video cassette shop that I usually visited almost weekly when I was just in my primary school years. The little store was at Mabohai Supa-save (back then the supermarket was called 'Smart') on the 1st floor. The weird thing was, that video store looked like a porn shop coz it was pretty dim inside with miniature neon lights decorating the shelves.
Some of the videos I got there was Ultraman, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Doraemon, and a bunch of movies like the Ninja Turtles and Robocop.

VHS heaven... or hell

Having a VCR in your household was a necessity, while owning a computer at that time was pretty much a luxury. Every time my dad got back from his overseas trip, he usually brought back a lot of cassette tapes of Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny cartoons just for me to watch all night. He never got me porn. Nowadays parents, not knowing much about the contents of their purchase, bought their kids DVD movies that show lots n lots of tits (usually pink in color), teenage couples 'doin it' and hot gay action. Yay, free porn for the kids!

Happy hour

Rewinding was a chore. Can you imagine how hectic it was to actually having to rewind the tape all the way back to the beginning every single time you wish to replay your favorite flicks? But I got a way of getting myself preoccupied though. I could actually get a drink from the fridge and prepare a light snack (toast bread) while waiting for the rewinding process to finish. (hmm, no wonder I got so fat back then).

The transition from video cassettes to video-cd format was a wonderful experience, as you could finally watch movies through those ever-popular compact discs in the mid 90's. They were selling like pancakes, and they were selling somewhere between $10 to $15 during their glorious times. The problem was, an hour and a half movie required 2 Cd's for storage and you had to change Cd's to progress in the middle of it, so couch potatoes had to get their ass up to pop out Disc 2 from the other side of the CD jewel case, eject the CD tray from the player, take out Disc 1, slot in Disc 2, return Disc 1 into the case (I tend to stack them all on top of the player till they became the Himalayas) and press 'play'. Whew. Good thing ya didn't need to rewind them like the good ol' cassette tapes.

Then the DVD emerged. But I don't really wanna cover on DVD's coz its still a popular medium to watch movies in this decade (Hi-Def DVDs are still a long way to becoming mainstream in our country). Remember those large pan pizzas that you couldn't actually eat? Exactly, I'm actually talkin about the Laser discs. They were the granddaddy of DVD's.

When you owned a mighty Laserdisc, you'd laugh at the poor ol cassette tape. They were far superior in quality and performance (at that time). The track-skipping feature was introduced, making it easier to switch to different lengths of the movie. Unfortunately they were so big, and even bulkier than the tapes, you can't even fit them in your backpack or glove compartment. And they're freakin heavy too. If you were a midget, you could actually topple yourselves off from carrying those horrible things. Bringing them to school was impossible, you could get caught easily. Heck, it was much easier to trade cassette tapes and VCDs among my classmates.

And yes, they're freakin expensive. My dad, the crazy karaoke laserdisc collector he once was, had tons of 'em when I was a kid. They usually filled the shelves overshadowing my collection of cartoon cassette tapes. Its funny that there are no trace of those laserdiscs now, not a single one existed in my house. Probably evaporated into thin air thanks to the rising temperature of our planet.

God help me...