My Star Wars Experience: Young Jedi Knights, Junior Jedi Knights and the Impact Both Series Had on the Star Wars EU of the 2000's

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I wanna talk about two Star Wars young reader book series that were published when I was growing up in the 90's. They're the Young Jedi Knights series by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta and the Junior Jedi Knights series by Rebecca Moesta and Nancy Richardson. So let's get into it!

Published from 1995 to 1998 for a total of fourteen volumes, Young Jedi Knights tells the story of the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, as well as their friends, Tenel Ka, the daughter of a warrior from Dathomir and the prince of the Hapes Cluster, and Lowbacca, the nephew of Chewbacca, and their adventures at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. The series was split into three story arcs. The first one, encompassing the first six books of the series, told the tale of Jacen and Jaina's fight against the Second Imperium and its Shadow Academy, led by Luke's former student, Brakiss, who was first introduced in the second book of the series, Shadow Academy, and went on to play a role in The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which was published in 1996.

My first introduction to the series was sometime in late 1997 or the summer of 1998 when my mom picked up the seventh book in the series, Shards of Alderaan, from the public library for me. I eventually would go on to read the first six books in the series with four of them being borrowed from my fifth grade teacher, who had them in his classroom library when I was in grade 6 in 1998-1999. I loved them.

Junior Jedi Knights was a series aimed at slightly younger readers, as in the kids who were reading Goosebumps and Animorphs in the late '90s. The series was published for six books from 1995 to 1997, with Nancy Richardson writing the first three books and Rebecca Moesta writing books 4 through 6. The series focused on the youngest Solo child, Anakin, and his friend, Tahiri Veila, a girl who was raised by a tribe of Tusken Raiders/Sand People on Tatooine, while they train at Luke's Jedi Academy under the tutelage of the ancient Jedi Master, Ikrit, who looks like an animal that you would own as a pet. 

I only ever owned the first two books when I was a kid. They were actually owned by my brother, but not until sometime in the early 2000's. I don't think we ended up keeping them though, because I don't remember them being part of the huge batch of Star Wars novels that I got rid of in 2015-2016, before we moved.

I also wanted to mention something interesting. So in the first two or three books of Young Jedi Knights, it's mentioned that at the time of those two or three books, Anakin Solo wasn't quite old enough to start attending the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, so one would assume that Junior Jedi Knights takes place after Young Jedi Knights. However, the weird thing is that every timeline of the Legends continuity, from Wookieepedia to The Essential Chronology and The New Essential Chronology to the early timelines included in the novels published by Del Rey from 1999 to 2003, namely the New Jedi Order series, place Junior Jedi Knights in 22 ABY (After Battle of Yavin) or 22 years after Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and Young Jedi Knights in 24 ABY. If Anakin Solo was not old enough to train at the Jedi Academy in Young Jedi Knights, then why would Junior Jedi Knights take place BEFORE Young Jedi Knights? Like I said, it's not even an error on the timeline of Legends Books on Wookieepedia either. This placing in the timeline has been included in officially published reference books and timelines since 1999.

While neither series had much of an impact on the novels published by Bantam Spectra during the time they were being published by Berkley Jam Books and Boulevard Books, as mentioned earlier, Brakiss did appear in The New Rebellion in 1996. And because of his appearance in that book, Luke and Brakiss's encounter on the planet, Telti, was mentioned by Luke in book #6 of Young Jedi Knights, Jedi Under Siege, which was published just two months before The New Rebellion came out.

Brakiss's time at the Jedi Academy appeared briefly in I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole, which was published in 1998. This book served as a bit of a retcon of The Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson, as it placed both Corran Horn and Brakiss at the Academy during that trilogy of novels, despite neither of them having been created when the trilogy was published in 1994.

While the New Jedi Order series heavily focused on the Solo children, Anakin and Tahiri were the main focus of the Edge of Victory duology by Greg Keyes, which were books 7 and 8 in the NJO series. 

Master Ikrit appeared in the first book of the duology, Conquest, as did Qorl, the Imperial TIE Fighter pilot who crashed on Yavin IV during the battle to destroy the first Death Star in A New Hope. Somehow Qorl was never found on Yavin IV until 24 years later, when Jacen, Jaina, Tenel Ka, and Lowie discovered Qorl's crashed TIE Fighter in the first book of Young Jedi Knights, Heirs of the Force, despite the Jedi Academy having been on the moon since 11 ABY. That's a major oversight considering how long Qorl was stuck on Yavin IV for, and how often Luke and his Jedi students explored the jungles of Yavin IV.

Star by Star by Troy Denning, which was published in 2001, has all of the Young Jedi Knights, including Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, Lowie, Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Tahiri, on a deadly mission to infiltrate a Yuuzhan Vong Worldship in order to destroy the Vong's voxyn Jedi Killers, who were genetically modified vornskr from the planet Mykr, the world we first see Talon Karrde on in Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn all the way back in 1991. Tahiri and the other survivors of this mission continue to be important characters in the rest of the NJO series.

Tahiri, Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Lowie, along with Jacen and Jaina, are key players in Troy Denning's The Dark Nest Trilogy, which was published in 2005. I've never read this trilogy before. I completely missed it during this period as I was actually trying to complete my NJO collection, and was reading through that series.

The same characters, along with Jacen and Jaina, are also major characters in the Legacy of the Force series, which was published from 2006 to 2008. I've read a few books in this series, though I haven't read all of them. There are plenty of surprises though, and the Young Jedi Knights all play major roles in the series.

Zekk, Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Tahiri all appear in the Fate of the Jedi series, which was published from 2009 to 2012, and was the last series of Star Wars novels to feature most of the Young Jedi Knights, with Jaina's last appearance being Troy Denning's 2013 novel, Crucible, before Disney ended the original EU in 2014. None of them have their own storylines in this series however, as they had during the NJO days of the early 2000's. By this point, they were all adults, and all Jedi Masters, with Jaina getting married to Jagged Fel, her long time romantic partner. 

I feel like both Young Jedi Knights and Junior Jedi Knights are often overlooked by fans of the Star Wars Legends novels, simply because they're young reader series. Which is understandable, especially if you didn't grow up reading them. They're great books, but there have been so many young reader Star Wars novel series that have come out over the years, and most of the Legends ones are never mentioned in any other piece of Star Wars fiction. Though I think events from Jedi Apprentice, Jedi Quest, and The Last of the Jedi were brought up in the Dark Times (between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) era adult novels of the early 2010's, namely Kenobi by John Jackson Miller. 

My point in bringing that up is that both of these series introduced so many awesome and important characters to the Star Wars Legends mythos. Characters who stood the test of time and became heroes in their own right. Yet these books are often overlooked. Which is unfortunate. I loved these books growing up, particularly the Young Jedi Knights series. I actually just did a re-read of the first six books as I have them in two paperback compilations, which contain three books each, that were published in 2003, called Jedi Shadow (Books 1-3) and Jedi Sunrise (Books 4-6). They still hold up, aside from that weirdness of where the Junior Jedi Knights series was placed in the Star Wars Legends Timeline.

Alright my friends, I think that's gonna do it for me for this week. I'm not sure when I'm going to be posting next week as I've got stuff to do next week, though I don't know what day I'm doing that stuff on. But I'll be back at some point. Also, come watch me on The VHS Club Podcast tomorrow night on YouTube at 9 ET as I'll be talking all about VHS with Katie and Nat. Katie assures me that the technical issues we faced last week have been resolved and that we're ready to broadcast tomorrow night. So come join me for that. Until then have a great rest of the day, a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My 90's and 2000's Experience: TGIF: The Shows I Watched (1989-2019)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm pretty good. I had a nice, quiet weekend. So today I decided to take a look at the shows I watched that were part of the various incarnations of ABC's Friday night comedy programming block, TGIF, which stands for Thank Goodness It's Funny. Next week I'll be taking a look at several shows I didn't watch. For this first part I'm including the shows I watched that were part of ABC's later attempts to revive the programming block in the mid 2000s, the 2010s and the modern day, when it became ABC Friday Night. So let's get into it.

TGIF was the brainchild of Jim Janicek, who was the head of promoting ABC's Tuesday night and Friday night comedy lineups, and ABC's president at the time, Bob Iger. Janicek's reasoning for creating this block was because he remember watching The Wonderful World of Disney, which he watched with his family when he was a kid, as pretty much all of us have done at one time or another since 1954. ABC also had a long history of airing family oriented sitcoms on Friday nights from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Flintstones in the 50's and 60's to The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family in the 70's. And it all came from there. TGIF debuted on Friday, September 22nd, 1989, with megahits Full House (1987-1995) and Perfect Strangers (1986-1993), along with newcomer, Family Matters (1989-1998) and, sophmore series, Just the Ten of Us (1988-1990), which had debuted on Tuesday nights during the 1988-1989 season. While the lineup changed during the 11 years TGIF was on the air, the programming block was appointment television for families on Friday nights. Especially for kids who were too young to be out at night, and adults who weren't interested in the weekend night life of the 90's. So let's take a look at the shows that I did watch at various times during this period, and then next week I'll look at a few of the shows that I didn't watch or don't remember watching.

First up is Full House. I've talked about this show alot on my blogs over the years, but never when I watched it. It's funny, because I don't remember watching Full House when it was on TGIF. I remember watching it on Tuesday nights, but not on Friday nights, as it moved to Tuesday nights at the beginning of the 1991-1992 season. Nonetheless, it was part of the initial lineup of TGIF, hence why I'm including it here.

Next is Family Matters, which is actually a spin-off of Perfect Strangers as Harriette and Carl Winslow originally appeared on that show. Which is something I didn't know until I saw a few YouTube videos on the history of TGIF. I also didn't know that the actress who played Harriette, Jo Marie Payton, was replaced by Judyann Elder in the show's final season when the series moved from ABC to CBS. Probably because I didn't watch the final season since it had moved to CBS, and it wasn't airing on any Canadian channels, that I can recall, after that move. I talked about this show in my first sitcoms post I did a while back.

The 1990-1991 brought the Jim Henson co-production, Dinosaurs, to TGIF. I also mentioned this show in my first sitcoms post, so I won't go too in depth here. It only ran for four seasons, until 1994, but I loved this show when I was a kid.

Next is Boy Meets World. I don't think I've ever talked about this show on my blogs before, but it was one of my favourites growing up. I didn't start watching it until its fourth season in 1997, but this was the last TGIF show that my family was still watching by the time the original incarnation of TGIF ended in 2000. All the others had either ended or, in the case of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, were on later at night.

 While Sister, Sister began its broadcast run on TGIF in early 1994, I don't remember watching it. My sister claims we did, but it's possible she watched it in syndication sometime in the 2000s and I watched some of it with her. the 1994-1995 season was weird for me, because, other than Full House (most likely) and the series premiere of Star Trek: Voyager in early 1995, I don't remember watching very much Primetime television during this period. By this point we'd moved to the log house, and my siblings and I had our own play room area on the second floor, in the common area outside the three bedrooms (I shared a room with my brother), so we didn't watch much TV with our parents. At least, I didn't, as I had to be on my feeding pump full time, which was in my bedroom. Plus for the one season that Sister, Sister was airing as part of TGIF, it was on at 9:30, according to the schedule on Wikipedia, AND we didn't have access to ABC, just the over the air Canadian channels, plus PBS, since we didn't have cable. So if we did watch Sister, Sister it was after it had moved to a different night and was on in an earlier time slot, or it was in syndication in the 2000s. I do remember seeing commercials for Sister, Sister during Full House. 

Muppets Tonight was kind of like my generation's version of The Muppet Show, except taking place in a TV studio instead of an old theatre. It was only on ABC for a season before moving over to the Disney Channel for its final season, so I didn't watch it on TGIF for very long. I did love the show, even though I'd grown up watching reruns of The Muppet Show on YTV. Like I said, it was my generation's version of The Muppet Show.

The last staple of TGIF that I watched was Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I missed the first season in the 1996-1997 television season, but I caught it in reruns during the summer before season 2 began airing. This is the era that I remember watching TGIF during the most. Every Friday night, my mom, my brother, my sister, and I would sit and watch Boy Meets World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and two other shows that I'll talk about momentarily from 8 pm until 10. By this point I was 10, about to turn 11, and my brother was 6 and my sister was 7, and so Mom let us stay up to watch TGIF with her since it was Friday night and we didn't have school the next day. This was also the era in which Teletoon and Space Channel were just starting to become a thing, Family Channel was becoming available to us, as it wasn't a premium cable channel anymore, and Pokemon was about to come into our lives.

Teen Angel was the first of the two shows that debuted during the second hour of TGIF. This was my introduction to Ron Glass, who played Marty's heavenly guide, Rod, a.k.a. God's brother, on this show. So when he appeared on Star Trek: Voyager as a different character in the seventh season I recognized him immediately. I also recognized him when I saw him as Shepherd Book on Firefly when I watched that show for the first time almost a decade later.

I remember watching You Wish, but I don't remember very much about it, other than there was a genie in it. Like with Teen Angel, You Wish only lasted one season, so it wasn't on for very long. However, what I remember most about TGIF's 1997-1998 season is the TGIF Time Warp week. This was basically a crossover between Boy Meets World, Sabrina, Teen Angel, and You Wish, where Salem swallows a time ball on Sabrina and then makes his way, with Sabrina close behind him, to the other three shows, sending all four shows into different time periods. Of course you didn't have that with most shows during that era, though Urkel from Family Matters would appear on Full House, Step by Step, and other TGIF shows from time to time.

 The last TGIF show from this era that I watched was Two of a Kind, which brought Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen back to TGIF following the end of Full House. This show was on at 8 with Boy Meets World at 8:30 and Sabrina at 9, with Brother's Keeper to round off the programming block at 9:30. Unfortunately Two of a Kind only lasted for one season and for the spring part of the 1998-1999 season, Sabrina moved into the 8 pm time slot, with newcomer Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place moving into the 9 pm slot. By this time TGIF, and ABC as a whole, was seeing declining ratings, despite the network trying to bring the ratings back to what they were at the height of TGIF in the early to mid 90's. But other than The Hughleys, which debuted in 1998, but moved to TGIF in 1999, there were no new lasting shows on TGIF. In the summer of 2000, Boy Meets World ended after seven seasons, Sabrina moved to The WB, and The Hughleys moved to UPN for the 2000-2001 television season. It was at the end of that season that I got a TV in my room and started watching The Simpsons, That '70s Show, Hollywood Squares, The King of Queens and The Drew Carey Show, among many other shows. But, that wasn't it for TGIF.

While I didn't watch it on ABC, I did watch 8 Simple Rules (initially called 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter). This series was my introduction to Kaley Cuoco, only a few years before she started playing Penny on The Big Bang Theory in 2007. I remember when John Ritter passed away in 2003, and his character on the show, Paul, died offscreen, bringing in James Garner and David Spade. Besides Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paul was the first TV character I ever saw who actually died. Even Mr. Hooper had died on Sesame Street before I was born. 

I also watched George Lopez. 8 Simple Rules, in its final season, and George Lopez were part of the second run of TGIF which only lasted from 2003 to 2005, though neither show were in the block together. George Lopez aired on TGIF in the 2003-2004 season, while 8 Simple Rules aired on TGIF in the 2004-2005 season. I loved both shows, but, because I wasn't watching them on ABC, it wasn't the same as it was in the 90's when I was watching Boy Meets World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Teen Angel, You Wish, and Two of a Kind with my mom and siblings. 

In 2012, Tim Allen returned to TV with Last Man Standing as part of a semi-revival of TGIF known as ABC Comedy Friday, which ran from 2012 to 2017. I enjoyed this show when it first started, but, this was the early 2010s, so not only were comic book based shows becoming more prevalent, but American politics were starting to creep into alot of shows, whether they were dramas or sitcoms. Being a Canadian, I grew tired of that pretty quickly. I definitely watched it for two or three seasons before the CW DC Comics based shows became more prevalent in my life. But I dropped it after that.

2012 also saw the return of Reba McEntire to TV in a series, very similar to her previous show, Reba, called Malibu Country. I also didn't watch it on ABC. It was on Citytv here in Canada, right after Last Man Standing. I liked it, but, it only lasted for one season before being canceled, and I don't think it stayed on Citytv for very long, because I don't remember seeing it much beyond the first four or five episodes. It was fun seeing Reba back on TV again because I loved her previous sitcom, Reba, when it was on in the early to mid 2000s. 

This show replaced both Last Man Standing and Malibu Country in the ABC Comedy Friday lineup in the spring of 2013, though it was only temporary in the case of Last Man Standing. I only watched a few episodes of Happy Endings because Elisha Cuthbert, who I remembered from the Canadian series, Popular Mechanics for Kids, which aired on Global from 1997 to 2000. I didn't like it as much as I did Last Man Standing and Malibu Country though, and I only watched two or three episodes before I stopped. 

The last TGIF show I ever watched, even though it wasn't on TGIF when I was watching it during its first season, was Speechless. The show had started on Wednesday nights after Modern Family and The Goldbergs, but moved to Friday nights for ABC's second attempt to revive TGIF in the 2018-2019 season, which was the show's final season. By this point broadcast television had already begun its decline due to the rise of Netflix and Hulu (this was before Disney+ became a thing). Because of this, ratings weren't as high on any of the networks, as they'd once been, particularly in the 80's and 90's. So shows like The Goldbergs, Speechless and Schooled, which would've had high ratings in the 90's and 2000's, weren't getting as high of ratings in the mid to late 2010's. 

From 2017 to 2018, Friday nights on ABC were for shows like Once Upon a Time, Inhumans, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than the sitcoms that had been a staple of the Friday night lineup on ABC since 1952, if not earlier. Which is probably ABC attempted to revive TGIF in the 2018-2019 season and kept the comedy block going in the 2019-2020 season, with news and current events show, 20/20, which had been a staple of the 10 pm to 11 pm time slot since 1987, becoming two hours, going from 9 pm to 11 pm, with American Housewife and Fresh Off the Boat being the only sitcoms in that one hour time slot from 8 pm to 9 pm. Since 2020, Shark Tank has taken over that 8 pm to 9 pm time slot, leaving ABC's Friday night lineup devoid of comedy or anything that's remotely passable as entertainment. 

TGIF is a product of its era. It was so much fun watching these shows whether or not I was able to watch them on Friday nights. But, what made it really special was getting to sit down on Friday nights with my family, while my dad was at work, and watching TV together after a busy week. Especially because, even though I wasn't in the hospital or going to appointments at the hospital as much by 1997, I still had school, and the occasional appointment. I also had physio therapy, a nurse coming in every day, Monday-Friday, and a Vitamin B-12 shot every two weeks. My sister also had ballet on Thursday nights, and all three of us had school, even though none of us had school related after school activities to go to. So it was nice to get to stay up later than normal and sit in front of the TV and watch shows that we could enjoy together, as a family. Even in the early to mid 2000's there weren't alot of shows that we'd sit down in the same room to watch since I had a TV in my room and by 2003-2004, my siblings each had a TV in their rooms. So while we may have watched some of the same shows, we weren't watching them in the same room.

There's also no such thing as appointment television anymore. Oh sure, we have alot of great shows being worked on by some very talented people, but with streaming services being prevalent, we can watch shows whenever we want. Even the ones that drop one episode a week. Now, I'm fortunate that my parents and I still have cable, and that Star Trek shows air on CTV Sci-Fi Channel, so I can still sit down and watch the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Superman & Lois on Thursday or Tuesday nights at either 9 pm (for Star Trek) or 8 pm (for Superman & Lois). But there aren't any sitcoms that I have to sit down and watch at a particular time once a week. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back on Wednesday to talk about the Young Jedi Knights and Junior Jedi Knights book series that were published in the 90's. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

The Wizard (1989) Movie Discussion

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I know I don't usually post anything on Saturdays but today I'm making an exception. After about five to ten years after hearing about it, I finally watched the 1989 movie, The Wizard, starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater, Beau Bridges, and Jenny Lewis, last night. And I wanna talk about it. As you can see, I added the word "discussion" to the title of this blog post because it's not a movie review. So let's get into it.

I had just turned 3 years old when The Wizard came out. So I wasn't old enough to see the movie. Yet, somehow, I still ended up missing it on VHS when I was growing up in the 90's, despite the fact that it had a home video re-release in 1997, when I was ten years old. Given how nobody I knew, not even the older kids I knew, ever talked about it, it's not surprising that I missed it.

This movie introduced Super Mario Bros. 3 to North American audiences as it had been released in Japan on October 23rd, 1988, but wouldn't be released here in North America until February 12th, 1990. Yet, it was highly anticipated considering how well Super Mario Bros. had sold in 1985 and how well Super Mario Bros. 2 had sold in 1988. I honestly think this movie contributed to the success of this game.

People weren't kidding when they said this was an advertisement for Nintendo. I mean it was cool seeing footage for games that I've never played like Rad Racer, Ninja Gaiden, and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that came out for the NES. However, the movie is so much more than just an advertisement for Nintendo and the NES. It's about the quest of a young boy to say goodbye to his sister, who died sometime before the start of the movie. The cast does an incredible job. I haven't seen Christian Slater in very much, besides a cameo in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), but I really like him in this movie. The last time I saw Beau Bridges in anything was in the final two seasons of Stargate SG-1 from 2005 to 2007. Of course, I've seen Fred Savage in a few thing, but aside from Sam McMurray, who I know from The King of Queens (1998-2007), the rest of the cast is pretty unfamiliar to me. Which is great, because I didn't have any preconceived notions about them.

 Honestly, the scene where Jimmy is competing against Lucas and Mora at the Video Armageddon competition actually reminds me of the pop culture review game show series, Video & Arcade Top 10, which aired on YTV from 1991-2006, just because it does have that competition aspect to it, with three contestants having a certain amount of time to get as many points as possible. So that aspect of the movie was familiar to me, even though I'm not a huge gamer, nor was I old enough to compete in anything like that at the time The Wizard came out. Oh and the music in the movie was pretty great too, with only "Send Me an Angel" by Real Life being a song that was familiar to me.

I finally picked The Wizard up on DVD when I was at Ottawa Comiccon last weekend. It was pretty cheap and I couldn't pass up a chance to finally see this movie since I'd heard so much about it over the last decade. Honestly, this movie was not disappointing in any way. Given I'd only ever heard people talking about this movie online, and it was all fans of the movie talking about it, I was afraid it was overhyped and wouldn't even meet my expectations. Not that I had high expectations for the movie, but fans of a movie tend to talk about it like it can do no wrong, even if it's not that good of a movie. And that's what I was afraid was going to happen with this movie. Thankfully it didn't, and I will definitely be watching it again in the near future.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more blog posts. Also, we had technical difficulties on Thursday night, which is why there's no podcast episode for you to enjoy this week. Katie did get the problem fixed, so we're going to try to broadcast the episode on Thursday, September 19th, which is this coming Thursday night. But, I'll have plenty of blog posts for you during the week too. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My 90's and 2000's Experience: 80's and 90's Movies I'd Like to Have on VHS

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I had a great time at Ottawa Comiccon on Friday and I picked up some great 80's and 90's finds including Spaceballs on VHS. In honour of my return to the VHS Club Podcast tomorrow night to talk about the history of VHS and VCRs, I decided to talk about 80's and 90's movies that I'd love to own on VHS. So let's get into it.

I did own the 1990 VHS release of An American Tail when I was a kid, and I have the original 1992 VHS release of its sequel, Fievel Goes West. But, I'd love to own the original 1987 VHS release of An American Tail just to complete the two theatrical movies on the format. I do have both on DVD, along with their two late 90's direct-to-video sequels, but I just thought it'd be cool to have the first movie on VHS.

While it's not my favourite movie and I've only seen it a handful of times, Back to the Future is almost a must for 80's movies to own on VHS. I originally saw it on VHS at some point in the 90's, though I don't remember if I saw it at CHEO, or if I didn't see it until 1999 or 2000 when I borrowed the trilogy from someone. I have the movie on DVD, but just the first one, since I found it cheap at Giant Tiger back in like 2015 or 2016, sometime before we moved in the summer of 2016. 

I love Beetlejuice, but I've never seen it on VHS. I saw it on TV in the 2000's and, of course, I have it on Blu-ray. But so far I haven't found it on VHS yet.

I've never seen Can't Hardly Wait, and I don't own it on DVD or Blu-ray. So why do I want to own it on VHS? Well, the VHS Club Podcast has something to do with it. Katie and Nat reviewed this movie as one of their first episodes. Well, Katie did. Nat was absent for the episode. Anyways, I hadn't discovered the show yet when they reviewed this movie, so I watched it recently, and now it's a movie I wanna watch on VHS.

As you all know, I saw Clueless for the first time at the beginning of the summer after I found it on DVD at a second hand store, and I loved it. As the quintessential 90's movie, I wanna have it on VHS since I missed it on the format the first time around.

 With Ghostbusters, it's not an absolute must for me to own it on VHS, despite the fact that I have Ghostbusters II on that format. Mostly because I have it on DVD, along with the rest of the Ghostbusters movies besides Frozen Empire. But, it would be cool if I came across it someday. It's not a super must for me though.

Same goes with Matinee, which I reviewed on the blog almost two years ago now. I bought it on iTunes and I enjoyed it, but I'm not in any rush to buy it on physical media. These next two are musts for me to own on VHS, if I can find them.

Up next is Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. My parents rented this movie for my siblings and I numerous times, along with the VHS releases of episodes of the original Rainbow Brite cartoon. It's not the best movie, but it's one I haven't seen in over 30 years. It did get a DVD release in 2003 or 2004, but that's been out of print for at least 10 to 15 years and I haven't come across it on either format.

Same thing sort of goes for Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. Though it has had three different DVD releases over the years. This is another one that my parents rented for me a few times when I was a kid. I actually may have also watched it at CHEO at least once, but this was a definite rental. I also have yet to find it on VHS or DVD, but if I find it on VHS before I find it on DVD, then I will absolutely get it on VHS.

She's All That is a weird one, because I'm pretty sure it's a movie I saw on TV at some point in the 2000's, but if I did see it on TV, I haven't seen it recently enough to know whether I saw it or not. It's also another movie I haven't come across on VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray at a thrift store, second hand store or flea market. It's another iconic 90's movie though, so it's one that if I find it on VHS I'll pick it up. If not, oh well.

The Last Starfighter is one of my favourite 80's Sci-Fi movies, which I've owned on DVD and Blu-ray. So it's on my list of movies I'd like to own on VHS for that reason. Plus I missed it on VHS the first time around, as well as the second time around when it was re-released on VHS in 1995. 

The last movie on this list is The Wizard, starring Fred Savage. I actually just got this movie on DVD on Friday at Ottawa Comiccon, but I haven't watched it yet. I've heard so much about this movie and its connection to Super Mario Bros. 3 that as soon as I saw the DVD, I bought it immediately. While I have heard alot about this movie, I don't think it's been overhyped at all. In fact, it's not a movie I had heard of until the 2010's, when people started talking about it on YouTube and social media. It's also not one I remember seeing at the video store when I was a kid either. Because I got it on DVD, I'm not in a rush to find it on VHS. In fact, the only two movies on this list that I am in a rush to find on VHS are Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer and Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird just because they were movies that my parents rented for me multiple times and so I have a history with them.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I might be back for another post on Friday, but we'll see. Definitely come watch me tomorrow night at 9 pm Eastern, live on YouTube for the History of VHS episode of The VHS Club Podcast, or watch it or listen to it whenever you can starting on Friday. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Movies I Associate More With DVD Than with VHS

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So this week ended up not being as busy as I thought it was, so I thought I'd come on here and talk about movies that I associate more with DVD than I do with VHS, even though all of them have VHS releases. Before going to bed last night, I watched a video made by a guy named Perry for his channel, The Cassette Phase, which is a nostalgia based channel focusing on a wide variety of 80's and 90's topics, from nostalgic clothing to VHS to old TV commercials to movies and TV shows, though he does occasionally talk about earlier stuff, if he experienced them in the 90's. This video was on his Top 10 Fantasy Movies on VHS and while he was talking about the animated The Lord of the Rings movies from the 70's, he mentioned that he associates the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy with DVD more than he does VHS, even though they do have VHS releases. Check him out here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCassettePhase

This got me thinking about the movies that I associate more with DVD than with VHS, even if I owned them on VHS at one time or another. So, here's 20 of them, using cover images of the DVD releases that I have of those movies. They're organized into a quasi-alphabetical order, since this isn't a ranking. Let's get into it.

 First up is Agent Cody Banks, starring Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff. The movie came out in theatres in 2003, and had both a VHS and a DVD release. I'm pretty sure we rented this movie from the nearby gas station, since getting to Rogers Video wasn't as frequent as it was pre-1993, when we had one around the corner from us, and I'm pretty sure we rented it on DVD, rather than on VHS, just because by 2003 my parents had bought our first DVD player. My siblings and I most likely saw the movie on TV, but I'm about 99% sure that we rented the DVD to watch the movie.

Next up are the Austin Powers movies. Originally, I was just going to talk about Austin Powers in Goldmember, which came out in 2002, since I saw it in theatres with my friend, Keira, but I realized that, despite recording the first two movies off the TV, and watching them on VHS alot, I've actually watched them on DVD more often. Especially because I owned the third movie on DVD when I first got my own portable DVD player in the mid 2000's. I haven't watched these movies in a while, but they're pretty good as parodies go.

This next one is an interesting one, because while I know it had a VHS release, I've never seen the VHS anywhere. In fact I didn't know that Batman Begins even had a VHS release until just a few years ago, when I saw it listed on a Batman fansite in the movies on VHS section. When the movie was released on home video in late 2005, VHS was already well into its decline as a home media format, and most studios, with the exception of Warner Bros. and Disney, had already moved away from releasing movies on VHS, focusing more on their DVD releases. So it's not surprising that I never saw the VHS release for this movie, because chances are that, even back then, it was harder to find than the DVD release was. Other 2005 movies that fall into this category are The Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton), Elektra, and Fantastic Four.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker is another interesting one, because when I bought my copy of the original 2000 DVD release from the tech store at the college I was attending in 2007, I knew that it probably had a VHS release given that it came out in 2000, but, even though I still had my TV/VCR combo set in my bedroom, and still owned all of my childhood VHS collection, there was no chance of finding this movie on VHS in stores in 2007. Especially because I hadn't started going to thrift stores until 2019. And I have yet to find it on VHS at any of the thrift stores in the area that I've been to.

Directed by Jonathan Frakes, Clockstoppers is another movie that I associate more with DVD than with VHS, simply because I don't actually remember seeing it until I got the DVD a few years ago. I remember the commercials for it on TV, but I don't remember if we actually rented it or not. I can't imagine we didn't given that we're fans of Jonathan Frakes from his days playing Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but we rented alot of movies in the 2000's and some we rented on VHS, others we rented on DVD, and others we owned either on VHS or DVD, so there's a good chance that we did rent it on DVD and I just don't remember.

Being that it came out in 2000 and was released on home video in 2001, we absolutely rented The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle on VHS, so I'm not including it on the list, however the 2004 live action Thunderbirds movie is one we rented on DVD. Between having watched the original Thunderbirds TV series in reruns on YTV, and the movie being directed by Jonathan Frakes, there was no way we were going to miss it.

Next is Home Alone 4. I actually saw this movie on TV in like 2004 or 2005, but I also don't remember seeing it on VHS or DVD at the store either. I remember seeing the first three Home Alone movies on DVD at Walmart and Futureshop, but not the fourth one. Probably because it's a TV movie, not a theatrical feature film, and those seem to be harder to find than theatrically released movies for whatever reason. Of course I have all five movies on DVD (shown above).

Lilo & Stitch is a weird one for me because while I'm pretty sure we rented it before spending the money to buy ourselves a copy, I don't remember whether we rented it on VHS or DVD before buying it on DVD. The reason it's on this list is because my parents did buy the DVD release for us, and so I associate the movie with its DVD release more than with the VHS.

I own Looney Tunes: Back in Action on DVD now, though I didn't get it until probably 2018 or 2019. I remember watching the movie with my parents just after it came out on home video in 2004, but what I don't remember is whether we rented it on VHS or DVD. We had a DVD player by the time we rented it, but I don't think my parents had a VCR anymore by this point. So it's possible that we rented it on VHS, but given that we saw it in 2004, it's more likely that we rented it on DVD.

 Next is Mean Girls. My sister owned this on DVD when we were teenagers, so that's why I associate the movie with DVD rather than with VHS. I also own it on DVD now. I actually don't think I even knew that it had a VHS release until a few years ago and I saw it on Amazon when I was looking to see if the movie had a VHS release or not.

I got Men in Black II on DVD for my 19th birthday, after I got the portable DVD player that I had in my bedroom. So because I got it on DVD right away, I didn't even know if it had a VHS release or not since we didn't rent the movie on VHS or DVD and we didn't own it on VHS either.

I debated on putting Mr. Deeds on this list, just because I saw it in theatres when it first came out back in the summer of 2002, and then I didn't own it on any home media format until last year. I decided to include it just because, I remember seeing the DVD on the shelves at Futureshop more than I remember seeing the VHS release anywhere. 

Spider-Man 2 is a movie that we didn't rent, but someone bought for me when I first got my portable DVD player. I think I remember seeing the movie's VHS release at the store, but once I got the DVD there was no point in looking for the VHS release, even though I had the first Spider-Man movie on VHS, but not on DVD.

Star Trek Nemesis is an interesting one. We rented it on DVD, I ended up getting it on VHS for my birthday in 2003, thanks to a friend of mine at school, and then I eventually got it on DVD at the same time I got the rest of those first ten Star Trek movies on DVD. So even though I had the movie on VHS, I associate it with DVD more just because we rented it on DVD first, and then I got it on VHS.

The Christopher Reeve Superman movies are all movies I associate with DVD more than VHS, even though I have all of them on VHS and I saw the first three on VHS when I was a teenager. My grandparents had taped them off of TV in the 80's and still had the tapes at their house when I got the TV/VCR combo set for my 16th birthday in 2002, so I was able to borrow them and watch them. However, I've watched them on DVD the most.

The three live action Ninja Turtles movies from the 90's are definitely movies that I associate more with DVD than with VHS. I first saw them on DVD back in 2011 or 2012 when I got the 4 Film Favorites DVD collection, which includes the three 90's live action movies as well as the 2007 animated movie. Aside from the View-Master reels for the first two movies, I didn't grow up with the Ninja Turtles movies. I didn't even watch them on VHS in the hospital like I had with Batman Returns and other movies, like The Fox and the Hound. I have all three movies on VHS now, but I completely missed out on seeing them until I got them on DVD in the early 2010's. 

The Incredibles is another movie that came out on VHS and DVD that we just ended up renting, and then buying, on DVD. By the time The Incredibles came out on home video in early 2005, Disney wasn't advertising their VHS releases as much as they had in the late 90's, when DVD was just starting to become a thing. They were also harder to find than their DVD releases, outside of the Disney Store. I honestly don't remember seeing any Disney VHS releases in regular retail stores like Walmart and Futureshop after 2002. Yet I know they exist because I've seen them in thrift stores and some of them in the boxes of VHS that I've gotten over the last four years that I ended up not keeping. 

And now it's time to talk about the movies that began this entire blog post. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. We rented all of these movies on DVD as they came out. I also saw The Two Towers in theatres while I was off school for exam week at the end of January/beginning of February 2003. I didn't even know these movies had VHS releases, because again, I honestly don't remember seeing the VHS releases in stores. Especially not The Two Towers and The Return of the King. So I have more of a connection to the DVD releases than I do their VHS counterparts.

The Master of Disguise is another movie I debated whether to include it on this list or not. Mainly because while the commercials were on all the time when the movie came out in the summer of 2002, I only ever saw the movie on TV and never owned it on any home video format until I got it on DVD a year or two ago. But, I decided to put it on here anyway, just because I do own it on DVD and have never seen it on VHS.

Finally, we get to the last movie on this list, The Mummy Returns from 2001. I honestly don't remember renting this movie on any format, but I got it on DVD as a gift, either for my birthday or Christmas after I got my portable DVD player, and it's been in my collection ever since. I haven't watched it in years, but I plan on doing so soon as I have The Mummy on VHS and I haven't watched either of them in a long time.

I think that's gonna be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week, though, once again, there's only gonna be one post next week. I got a friend coming over for lunch on Monday, and Wednesday is the perfect day to put out my post on the movies I'd like to have on VHS, since I'll be on The VHS Club podcast the following night to talk about the history of VHS and VCRs with Katie and Nat. So until then have a wonderful weekend, particularly if you're going to Ottawa Comiccon like I'm doing, and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.