Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 12

The last couple of posts in this series have been dominated by Goodwill, which isn't necessarily a good thing, as the original plan for the series was to feature items from a variety of thrift stores, but you know what they say about best-laid plans...

Not counting those from July, my extracurricular activities have been pretty minimal this year. Going to Goodwill's monthly half-off sales has been the exception, but even those have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of months, as getting up (and going out) early on Saturday mornings isn't always as easy as it sounds, no matter what it's for.

But then July showed up, and I started going out to places again, including Serenity Thrift. Now ST isn't one of my favorite thrift stores, they're very clothes oriented, which is great if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm not -- in fact I can think of only a few things that I would rather do less than shop for clothes. That being said, they do have a few other things, including videos and DVD's, as well as books and a small selection of records, so I do like to try and go at least every six months or so.

Serenity Thrift also has the distinction of being located right next door to one of the few Dollar Tree's in my area that will occasionally have the $1 Blu-ray's and DVD's. Unfortunately this was one of the times where they didn't have any of the dollar media, but them's the breaks, and besides, I ended up getting more than usual from ST... so it balanced itself out.

A large donation of videos must've recently been received, because they had 3-4 times more than I've ever seen there, which for someone like me, really is quite exciting -- who knows what treasures might be lying in wait!

I seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to the shows that were part of Disney Afternoon's. I mean I know that I spent many an afternoon watching the cartoons, and I do recall drawing Darkwing Duck, and a few of The Gargoyles quite a bit, but as far as specific memories or plots of episodes go... I've got nothing! Which is kind of weird because I have almost total recall of most of the Nickelodeon shows form exact same time period, Adventures of Pete & Pete, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Salute your Shorts, etc. -- heck, when it comes to most of those shows, I can even remember some of the small details from the days that the episodes first aired, which makes the block of all things Disney Afternoon just that much more perplexing. 

On the plus side though, on the rare occasion that I come across a tape like this, I know that it'll basically be like watching the episodes for the first time again, which in a way is kind of nice -- especially when people often say that they'd like to go back and watch something for the first time again, well, with these I can.

Everything that I just said above applies to TaleSpin too. I don't remember any of the episodes, but I do fondly recall both the McDonald's toys, as well as the hand stamps that came in Kellogg's cereals -- in fact I still have both sets from when I was a kid.

Whoever donated these videos had some really good taste! And I consider it to be my good fortune to have gone to the store when I did, because it isn't everyday that one comes across so many 90's shows on video, especially now in 2019. As an aside, I didn't realize how popular Dinosaurs still is, I don't ever hear anybody mention the show, and I don't ever see anything about it in print, but maybe I'm just not hanging with the right crowd or reading the right websites?

I have the original Jonny Quest on DVD, but can't seem to resist picking up cheap episodes on VHS.

I know that it'll never happen, but I'd love to see serials make a comeback. They provide me with so much joy, but considering how long they were made, there doesn't seem to be as many out there as there should be. Some might say that the serial spirit still lives on in the form of web series', but I'm not one of them! No matter what anyone says, rank amateurs on YouTube don't compare with the talents of a major studios b team.

Confession time... (takes a deep breath)... I have never seen The Great Escape! There, I said it! It's crazy, I know. The only excuse that I can put forth is that I've just never had the opportunity to do so. I don't recall it being on television too much when I was young, and I've never come across a cheap copy on video/DVD, so that made it kind of hard for me to see, until now!

That's it for this trip, but six tapes for less than $3 made for a nice mini-haul, might have to try and go back a little sooner next time.


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