jimbaxters Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 On the subject of the early days of renting videos, this still cracks me up... I have to admit to being similarly rooted to the spot watching the greenhouse scene of Scum with my parents. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 2 minutes ago, jimbaxters said: On the subject of the early days of renting videos, this still cracks me up... I have to admit to being similarly rooted to the spot watching the greenhouse scene of Scum with my parents. That's blocked from within the UK; thanks to the wonders of VPNs, I can reveal it's Frank Skinner on Room 101 admitting being mortified by an explicit scene in Sophie's Choice when watching it with his parents. Sure I've mentioned this before, but I saw Pulp Fiction on video with my mum when it first came out, and when it came to the dungeon scene with Zed and Marcellus Wallace, my mum turned to me and asked, "what's he doing to him?" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert Raccoon Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 As a child of the 80s it was common for me and my dad to rent a horror film on a Friday night, the usual stuff like A Nightmare On Elm Street or Friday The 13th. My dad had no issues with his 7 year old son witnessing people being massacred in numerous and more violent ways however as soon as there was any nudity I was to cover my eyes. Spoiler And yes I did peek at the tits 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 4 minutes ago, Bert Raccoon said: As a child of the 80s it was common for me and my dad to rent a horror film on a Friday night, the usual stuff like A Nightmare On Elm Street or Friday The 13th. My dad had no issues with his 7 year old son witnessing people being massacred in numerous and more violent ways however as soon as there was any nudity I was to cover my eyes. Reveal hidden contents And yes I did peek at the tits Was he American? They've got the weird thing that it's perfectly OK to see a woman being brutally penetrated by a chainsaw, just so long as nobody implies that she might have enjoyed being pleasurably penetrated by a phallus. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamthebam Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 12 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. Did he get it off Harry the Bast*rd? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
German Jag Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 13 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: 2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere. I'd never seen so many of our neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. ETA: Pretty sure it was one of these bad boys. Recognise the sticky out buttons on the front. Holy shit, I'm 99% sure that was the first video recorder we had too. Rented from the local video shop along with the telly. Don't think I've seen one of those in about forty years! IIRC, the wee panel on the top had tuning wheels underneath for each of the eight channels you could select on the right. I have no idea why this is important. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRover Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 9 hours ago, Brother Blades said: I think the reason VHS took off was because Thorn EMI invested in it & the EMI part owned rights to so many songs on the soundtracks & refused to license them to Betamax producers to protect their investment, might be utter shite, but that’s what I was told at the time. VHS was widely available to many producers, while Beta was strictly controlled by Sony. Porn was available on VHS, much more so than on Beta, and is reputed to be a part of why VHS won. News stations continued to use Beta for a couple of decades due to higher quality. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swarley Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 9 minutes ago, TxRover said: ... Porn was available on VHS, much more so than on Beta... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Tattiescone Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 20 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag. One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener). The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it. 2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere. I'd never seen so many of our neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. ETA: Pretty sure it was one of these bad boys. Recognise the sticky out buttons on the front. I can hear that picture 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 11 hours ago, DA Baracus said: As in physical rentals? Amazon do online rentals. Aye, physical stores. Uhmm....you've got me thinking now, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonD Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 10 hours ago, BFTD said: Was he American? They've got the weird thing that it's perfectly OK to see a woman being brutally penetrated by a chainsaw, just so long as nobody implies that she might have enjoyed being pleasurably penetrated by a phallus. The film that sums this up for me is the TV version of The Godfather. They cut out the scene of Michael's honeymoon where his new wife takes off her top, but later on the guy getting shot in the eye in the sauna is perfectly okay. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19QOS19 Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 23 hours ago, Craig fae the Vale said: Game rental would never work now, but in the 90s it was brilliant. I still rent games. There's not a time limit as to how long you can keep it though, which is why it works. 23 hours ago, BFTD said: When you look at how much games cost at the time, you can see why rental was so popular. The SNES was particularly bad; I don't think I ever bought a new game for that machine. Stuff like Super Star Wars was about £70 IIRC; that's almost £150 now. And this is another reason why I rent. When I used to have more time I went through a shitload of titles on PS3/4. The number of games I played that would have cost £40/£50 that were utter shite was incredible. Renting is still the way to go IMO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salt n Vinegar Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 We used to have a video delivery service. Each week, the bloke would bring a glossy magazine showing the videos he had for rental. It worked at first - you would tick the box next to the ones you wanted and he was meant to bring a selection from that list the following week. It worked well to begin with, but pretty quickly he would just be bringing whatever he had in his van, which bore no relation to the ones we had ticked the previous week. Even worse, if there was a series of films, he would bring them in the wrong order. It didn't last long. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 17 minutes ago, Salt n Vinegar said: We used to have a video delivery service. Each week, the bloke would bring a glossy magazine showing the videos he had for rental. It worked at first - you would tick the box next to the ones you wanted and he was meant to bring a selection from that list the following week. It worked well to begin with, but pretty quickly he would just be bringing whatever he had in his van, which bore no relation to the ones we had ticked the previous week. Even worse, if there was a series of films, he would bring them in the wrong order. It didn't last long. The DVD rental-by-mail services could be awful for that. Eventually they allowed for series to be sent in order, but initially you could get sent disc 3 of, say, The Golden Girls Season One because someone else had discs 1 & 2. How am I supposed to know the origin story of Blanche being a big hoor when you start me halfway through, Blockbuster? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 1 hour ago, GordonD said: The film that sums this up for me is the TV version of The Godfather. They cut out the scene of Michael's honeymoon where his new wife takes off her top, but later on the guy getting shot in the eye in the sauna is perfectly okay. In fairness, that scene is a bit dodgy bearing in mind the topless woman/girl was only sixteen when it was filmed. They almost certainly wouldn't do that nowadays. I doubt that's why it was censored, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Wilson Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 13 hours ago, Bert Raccoon said: Our first VHS had a remote with a wire, pretty certain the first video we rented was Ruthless People featuring Danny Devito and Bette Midler. I also have a vague memory of having a portable tv in my bedroom as a youngster. It was black and white and had a dial to get the four channels but was better than f**k all I suppose Four channels! I got the black and white telly when we got a colour one for the 74 world cup. It had a fourth channel button, but that was the stuff of science fiction at the time. I needed every ounce of my strength to push and hold the button in to change channels. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 13 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: In fairness, that scene is a bit dodgy bearing in mind the topless woman/girl was only sixteen when it was filmed. They almost certainly wouldn't do that nowadays. I doubt that's why it was censored, though. Similarly, I was vaguely aware that there was something fairly dodgy surrounding Brooke Shields, but only recently read something about the details. She started doing nude scenes, and very sexually suggestive ones too, in films and advertising at the age of 11 and was wildly popular for it. As soon as she reached the age of majority, her career virtually disappeared. What the f**k is wrong with people? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 7 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said: Four channels! I got the black and white telly when we got a colour one for the 74 world cup. It had a fourth channel button, but that was the stuff of science fiction at the time. I needed every ounce of my strength to push and hold the button in to change channels. It was the height of optimism when those old Teles had about 7 or 8 channel buttons when, at the time. we had 3 channels. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 1 minute ago, hk blues said: It was the height of optimism when those old Teles had about 7 or 8 channel buttons when, at the time. we had 3 channels. Only just occurred to me that was probably so they could sell the same model across multiple markets, maybe just swapping parts out for the PAL/NTSC/SECAM markets. Even before cable, I think the Americans always had more channels than us. Probably everyone did. One of the first techy things I ever worked out to do was when I got a 48K Spectrum when I was 4. The family tuned it in to channel 8 on the TV in the living room, but for some reason the signal frequency would gradually drift and the picture would turn monochrome, so I got fed up asking an adult to re-tune the channel and worked it out for myself, even thought I wasn't allowed to touch the big picture box 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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