Tales from the Thrift Store vol.4

Since it had been over three months since my first visit there, and I have been dying (yes, literally) to see what kind of turnover they had in their videos section, I decided to alleviate my ever growing curiosity and head back to the Hilltoppers thrift store.

The trip ended up paying off, as there had been a healthy turnover in the videos section... which was awesome, but there were also a couple of non-VHS items to be had as well.

From my two visits now, I think I can say with some certainty that the store will usually have between 200-300 albums on hand, and while most of the stuff that people seem to be donating isn't my kind of music, I was at least able to still find one.

I don't remember this movie or it's soundtrack. I am familiar with, and like, two of these songs, so hopefully they'll be at least one or two more decent songs amongst the eight other tracks.

I found a small tote that was full of unopened McDonald's toys, most of which ended up being of the late 90's Beanie Babies variety (someone must have finally decided to give up on their "investment"), but I did end up digging out a couple of interest.

Lucy, and Sally/Snoopy, come from The Peanuts Movie, which I haven't seen... but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the toys! Plus, Lucy talks, so that's always a good thing. Dracula comes from Hotel Transylvania 2, which is another one I haven't seen (haven't seen #1 either), but it's Dracula, and he talks too, so how could I not buy it?

In the post that followed my first visit to this store, I spent some time talking about just how many videos there were to look through, but I didn't have any pictures to accompany my amazement... well, this time I do! The picture above is of the left side...

... and here is the right of the video's section. And remember too, these shelves are stacked two deep, so there's full rows behind everything that you're able too see in these pictures. Like I said in the previous recap of this place, there are easily over a thousand video's (plus a few DVD's) to search through. It literally takes me almost an hour just to go through everything, and oh what an hour it is. My search yielded fourteen videos this time, which isn't too bad. Ideally I'd like to find more, especially with such a large selection, but fourteen's still better than none.

I'm assuming that most of the people reading this aren't as into animal specials as I am, so I'm just grouping these four together, and not bothering with the backs. The "Predators" series was put out by Time Life, and The Trials of Life is one of David Attenborough's BBC productions.

I remember the animated series M.A.S.K., but I don't remember The Mask animated series. Even though I know I'm probably not going to like it, I still felt compelled to give it a try.

I saw this in the theatre back when I was a wee lad, and haven't seen it since. I think I was staying the night at a friend's house and his parent's took us along to see it. If I recall, it wasn't a very kid friendly movie, so I'm pretty sure neither my friend or I enjoyed it all that much. It will be interesting to see it again, this time through slightly older eyes.

Here's another one that I saw when I was around seven or eight (not in the theatre though), and then never saw it again.

It's always fun to find a Christmas or Halloween animated special that I didn't already have, especially since there aren't too many more of those left out there.

 One of the few Cary Grant movies that I haven't seen.

Does anyone else remember when this movie used to be on television like every single weekend for what seemed to be years? I haven't seen it since like '97 or '98, so I was overdue for another viewing.

 I bought this to be a back-up copy. It never hurts to have a sealed extra tucked away, just in case...

It seems like two-tape sets are becoming increasingly more scarce, I think a lot of times one of the tapes gets damaged or lost, so folks just end up throwing out the other one. Although, there were about a dozen two-tape sets in the videos section this time. Having seen all of these movies, the clips and trailers won't be of too much interest to me, but I'm hoping the interviews will be worth the price of admission.

Here is yet another one that I haven't seen since I was really young. In all my years of scouring through the video sections of countless stores, this was the first time that I had ever come across it on VHS.

And last but not least, I was able to find this potential gem. In case you can't read that, here's a better view:

I was kind of surprised to find this as most thrift stores don't put out recorded tapes. I already have a tape with the two-part Alf Thanksgiving special recorded on it, but wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to see what commercials may be on here. And even though it only says that Alf is on here, I was hoping there would be more, especially since most people back in 1988 tended to fill up blank tapes, as they were a little more expensive back then.

Overall, it was another pretty good outing, and I will certainly be going back to Hilltoppers sooner than later.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.