Movies We Rented On Repeat and A Podcast Recommendation

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm gonna talk about renting movies from Rogers Video, specifically the movies we'd rent on repeat. The movies that we would go to every time we rented a movie, unless someone else had rented them already. If you live in Canada, you know this video store chain, as it was basically our version of Blockbuster, even though we had Blockbuster here in Canada too. I'm gonna start with a brief overview of my experiences at Rogers Video before I get into the tapes themselves. There will also be a podcast recommendation at the end of this post. So let's get into it.

Between birth and the age of 6 (1986-1993) we had a Rogers Video in the mall down the street from where we were living at the time, we'd still drive there, because half the time we'd go in when we were in that mall at the grocery store there, or at the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions or whatever that I needed. Sometimes though, we'd be going for a walk, and somehow we'd end up at that mall. Anyway, the kids section was at the front of the store right as you walked in the door and that's where the Disney tapes, the Barney tapes, the Sesame Street tapes, the Muppet tapes, the Rainbow Brite tapes, and other random child appropriate tapes were located. So that's where my siblings and I would gravitate to. We'd each get to pick a tape and oftentimes we all just picked ones the other person would've chosen had they not already picked a tape. Also at this point we had our favourites too, so we would rent those as often as we could.

Once we moved out to the country in the summer of 1993, Rogers Video was much farther away, so we didn't go as often as we did when we lived in the city. Because of that, when we did go it was something very special. Especially because Mom and Dad couldn't always take us with them when they went. Dad might go after work, or Mom might go when she was already there doing groceries. I think there was even a couple of times where Mom would stop at Rogers Video on our way home from the hospital after one of my appointments. But even then, by the time we moved out of the log farmhouse in early 1996, my dad was working at a nearby gas station and you could rent movies there, so he would usually rent a movie for us from there before he came home from work on a Friday. 

By the time VHS started to go the way of the Dinosaurs, and were being replaced by DVDs in the early to mid 2000s, we weren't going into the city quite as much and we primarily rented movies from the gas station since it was about a five minute, or less, drive there compared to the 20 to 30 minute drive into the city, so we still rented movies, but all of our favourites were no longer available to us and we had to watch the movie that day or that evening before bed, because we no longer had the five day rentals that we'd had at Rogers Video. Plus by this point movie night had become family night, or Mom and Dad would rent something for me to watch while my siblings were out doing stuff, or whatever the case was. So let's get into the tapes that we rented on repeat. There are a total of 16 tapes on this list, which is why I'm only talking about movies and not video games, because there are tons of N64 games that we rented repeatedly as well. And I'll be doing reviews on all of these movies at a later time so I'm not gonna go into too much detail, and they won't be in any particularly order.

 First up is Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird! from 1985. Being that I was watching Sesame Street on TV every day, it made sense that when I saw this cover on the shelf at Rogers Video, this is a movie that I would want to rent. I mean, it was a no brainer. Plus it's funny AND it was filmed only about eight or nine hours away from where I live, which I didn't know until I was an adult. I'm still looking for a physical copy of the movie, either the edition of the tape we rented when I was a kid, or a DVD copy, because I'd really like to own a physical copy. Though I do have it digitally from years ago.

Up next is The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, also from 1985. Mom and Dad first rented this movie for me from West Coast Video, but we rented it the most from Rogers. In fact, we rented it so much that once Rogers chose to retire the tape from their inventory and put it on sale, my parents bought it for me. Sadly, I don't have a physical copy of the tape in my collection anymore, but thanks to my friend, Vincent Conroy from The Grundo Gazette Teddy Ruxpin fansite, I have the entire tape on my computer and I put it on every so often. I would still love to see this tape sitting on my VHS shelf one day though.

The Frog Prince from 1971 was my introduction to a Muppet named Mr. Sweetums, though he's simply referred to as Sweetums in this special. It aired on TV as part of a series called Tales from Muppetland, which consisted of TV specials depicting the Muppets's versions of classic fairytales. Of course, it being the Muppets, this was another perfect rental choice. I loved this movie and it was one of the few Muppets VHS releases to share the white clamshell cases with Disney because the Muppet Home Video label was under the Walt Disney Home Video banner, even though the Muppet movies coming out in the '70s and '80s weren't distributed under this label.

 Does anyone remember Rainbow Brite? The 1985 movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, was a movie that my parents rented for my siblings and I numerous times and we loved it because we'd been renting episodes of the TV series, Rainbow Brite, prior to renting the movie. Those tapes are also on this list, but the movie was decent, though, it being 1985, movies based on cartoons were a dime a dozen since other shows were doing it around this same time too, including The Transformers, G.I. Joe, and The Care Bears, among others. I've never found this movie on DVD, though it was released on DVD in 2004, at the same time its final VHS release came out.

Speaking of the Care Bears, another movie we rented was The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, which was the Care Bears version of Alice in Wonderland. The reason this movie stands out to me is because when the Care Bears, led by Braveheart Lion, meet the Mad Hatter, he sings a song about hats called, "You Like Hats". To this day, this movie has never been released on DVD in North America. It had VHS and Laserdisc releases throughout the late '80s and into the '90s, but it got abandoned after that. I'm keeping my eye out for a copy of the movie.

Barney's Campfire Sing-Along is the fifth tape released in the Barney & The Backyard Gang series and the only one to not include Adam (Alexander Jhin), instead a character named Jeffrey (Jeffrey Lowe) replaced him. I think we rented this tape about four or five times total from Rogers Video, in addition to watching it while I had an Echo done in the Cardiology clinic at CHEO. Of course, I've never owned this particular tape, but it's been uploaded to YouTube, along with the rest of the The Backyard Gang series, as these early Barney tapes are in the public domain now, as Lyrick Studios, which owned Barney from 1994 until it was folded into HIT Entertainment in 2001, let the license for Barney & The Backyard Gang go in 1997 or 1998, which is why those first eight episodes have never been released on DVD, and why none of them, besides Barney in Concert, were re-released on VHS after 1998. 

Next we have the first episode for Rainbow Brite, "Peril in the Pits" on VHS. Rainbow Brite was weird because, it never aired in reruns when I was a kid unlike other cartoons from that same era (1984-1989). My siblings and I found out about it because of these VHS tapes, and the fact that we had some of the plushes of the characters. 

Next is Rainbow Brite: The Mighty Monstromurk Menace, which contains the two part episode, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace", which were the next episodes that aired after "Peril in the Pits". Out of all of the Rainbow Brite tapes, this is the one we rented the most because it was our favourite. And I think we rented it with "Peril in the Pits" because they form an unofficial trilogy given that Rainbow Brite's human friend, Brian, is in all three episodes and "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace" continues the story from where "Peril in the Pits" ended.

 Next in the Rainbow Brite episode lineup is Rainbow Brite: The Beginning of Rainbow Land, which contained the two part pilot episode, "The Beginning of Rainbow Land". This is where things get really weird because the episode list for the show on Wikipedia says that "The Beginning of Rainbow Land Part I" aired on June 27th, 1984, with "The Beginning of Rainbow Land Part II" airing on July 4th, 1984, "Peril in the Pits" airing on December 5th 1984, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part I" airing on April 22nd, 1985, and "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part II" airing the very next day on April 23rd, 1985, closing out the first season. HOWEVER, the episode list on IMDB has "Peril in the Pits" airing on September 19th, 1987, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part I" airing on December 4th, 1984, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part II" airing on December 5th, 1984, and then both parts of "The Beginning of Rainbow Land" airing on the two April dates that Wikipedia has "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace" airing on. I think the airdates listed on Wikipedia are the more accurate ones, just because I doubt that "Peril in the Pits" aired more than a year after the rest of the series ended in July, 1986. I could see it if it were both parts of "The Beginning of Rainbow Land", being that it's the pilot episode, and, if they aired at all, the pilot episode for cartoons tended to air at the end of a show's run, rather than at the beginning.

As for this tape, I think we only rented it two or three times, in comparison to the other two I already mentioned. "The Beginning of Rainbow Land" also got released individually, but I remember just watching the episodes together on the same tape, rather than rewinding the first tape, taking it out of the VCR and then putting in the second tape. 

The last Rainbow Brite VHS tape we rented was Invasion of Rainbow Land, which contained three episodes on it, rather than the one or two that the previous releases had. The episodes were "Invasion of Rainbow Land" (episode 6), "Murky's Mom" (episode 7), and "Rainbow Night" (episode 8). I know we rented this one at least once, with twice being the most we would've rented it. 

Next is Charlotte's Web. We rented the 1991 VHS release as that's what was out at the time. I absolutely loved this movie when I was a kid. I just got it on DVD, along with it's direct-to-video sequel and the 2006 live action movie a couple of years ago, and I do have a review up on this blog, so check it out if you haven't already. Incidently my buddy, Brad, found the 1993 McDonald's printing of this edition of the VHS, bought it for me, and just brought it over to me this morning, along with some other awesome VHS tapes, so I now have it in my collection after 30 years.

Next is Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. We rented the 1991 release, which I just added to my collection a month or so ago, the last time I was out with Brad. I honestly don't remember how many times we rented this movie, but I'm pretty sure it was more than once. I also have the movie on iTunes, but I'm looking forward to popping the tape into my VCR and watching it again that way for the first time in more than 30 years.

Then we have Disney Sing-Along Songs: Be Our Guest from 1992. We rented this tape so many times. I also watched it at the hospital at some point, but I remember renting it the most. It's also a tape that I have sitting on my VHS shelf right now, and I've watched it a few times since I got it two years ago from my dental hygienist. The songs that stand out to me on this tape are "Little Wooden Head" from Pinocchio (1940), and "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" from The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

Next is Barney Goes to School, which was the sixth tape released in the Barney & The Backyard Gang direct-to-video series. We actually rented this one more than we did Barney's Campfire Sing-Along, probably because school is something that I could connect with, given that I've never been camping before, and this tape introduced the school setting that would be a mainstay of the Barney franchise for the first six seasons of Barney & Friends (1992-2000) before switching to a park setting starting in season 7 (2002). So this tape is special to me even though we never owned it.

Then we have Disney Sing-Along Songs: You Can Fly! from 1988. We definitely didn't rent this one as much as we did Be Our Guest. However, I do remember it because it was the first appearance of Ludwig Von Drake as the host of the program, taking over from Professor Owl in the first two tapes, and Jiminy Cricket in The Bare Necessities (1987). Plus it has "You Can Fly" from Peter Pan (1953) and "The Beautiful Briny" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). I've talked about this tape in my overview of the Disney Sing-Along Songs series, which I did a little over a year ago. 

 And finally, the last tape on this list is Barney's Magical Musical Adventure from 1993. Besides the two Backyard Gang tapes I showed earlier on this list, this is the only other Barney tape that we actually rented. We owned a few of them, and I saw one at the hospital, and I borrowed another from someone, but this was the only one, outside of the Backyard Gang tapes, that we rented. This tape, and Barney's Birthday, which contains the season 1 episode, "Happy Birthday Barney!", is the only Barney Home Video release to share the cover design with the 1992 releases of the eight Backyard Gang tapes. I don't know if that's because it was meant to be part of Barney & The Backyard Gang, or they just used the same cover design because the Backyard Gang tapes were the only other Barney tapes that were available at the time, besides the 20 episodes from season 1 that were available from Time Life Video at the time. Regardless, this is the last Barney VHS release to use this design. This direct-to-video special takes place between seasons 1 and 2. We rented it two or three times, maybe four times at the most, before we stopped renting movies from Rogers Video.

And that my friends is all of the movies that we rented from Rogers Video on repeat when I was a kid. We rented so many more movies from there that were only one time rentals, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight because we rented them so often. 

Before I go I just wanted to give a shoutout to the Generation S podcast because they did an episode on Blockbuster Video, and on renting movies and video games in general, this week, and the main host, Dan, asked his co-host, Lou, if there were any movies that he would rent on repeat, and that ended up getting me thinking about the movies that we rented from Rogers Video on repeat, and I ended up with a list of sixteen of them. Of course, there's only five actual movies on my list, the rest are all TV show episodes, TV specials, or direct-to-video specials, but that's what my parents rented for us when my siblings and I were kids. 

Generation S is a podcast about growing up in the '90s and early 2000s. Every Dan and whoever his co-host is for that week, talk about things from the '90s and early 2000s. But what's unique about this podcast over every other retro or nostalgia based podcast, is that they don't just talk about the movies, TV shows, music, comics, video games, or books of that era, but they talk about the clothes we wore, renting movies, what school dances were like when we were in high school in the early 2000s. Especially those first dances in middle school, shopping malls, because those have changed drastically since the '90s, and other experiences that you most likely had if you grew up in the '90s and the early 2000s like I did. They're on Apple Podcasts and on YouTube if you'd like to check it out.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Saturday to talk about the three part episode, "The Alien Costume" from Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1998), because I got those three episodes on VHS today, on a release called Spider-Man: The Venom Saga, courtesy of Brad. I was gonna watch the tape tonight and write a review tomorrow, but I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon so I don't have time. But, that's what Saturday is for. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.