Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 14

Last month's trip to Serenity Thrift was highly unusual, in that there video section was completely full, in fact their shelves were so full that the excess tapes had spread over to one of the book bins. Seeing as how videos (and DVD's) are my primary goal when going to any thrift store, this overflow of VHS was certainly not a problem, when it comes to videos... there's no such thing as "too much"!

I mentioned at the time that I usually only stop in there about once every six months or so, but because of their anomalous excess of tapes, and the unexpected bounty that resulted from that excess, that I would be returning much sooner than normal, and true to word, I did!

It had been about a month as of last week, and I figured that that was enough time to have let passed in between trips, plus I had to, or at least wanted to, check out all of the Halloween goodies at The Dollar Tree that's located right next door to the thrift store.

So, was it a successful trip? Was it a bust? There's only one way to find out...


After finding multiple Disney Afternoon tapes last month -- which are becoming increasingly rare to find -- I wasn't expecting to come across any more, but I did, well, one to be exact. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but this was sitting right next to a Back to the Future box set, which I would've also bought had it not been an ex-library copy.

I know that we're all supposed to be sensitive to head injury's, and offended by the barbaric testosterone laden sport that is football (at least that what Twitter tells me), but g**damn do I love these kind of videos! Think of me what you will, but I still enjoy seeing quarterbacks getting smoked, and receivers getting dead when venturing across the middle. Also, this box is the same on both sides, hence only seeing the one side.


This came from a local high school, who I'm assuming finally upgraded (DVD?), funny though, I didn't think anything like this was still shown classrooms. They had another one on the geography of the Bahamas, but I left that one behind. When I went to pay, one of the gals at the counter just couldn't not mention that they had a bunch of these last week, which of course didn't do many me any good, and probably didn't need to be said.


A Fred Astaire film that I wasn't familiar with? Yes, please! As an aside, the cover is very Vertigo-ish, which I found to be quite appealing as well.


Last Christmas I watched The Santa Clause for the first time, and enjoyed it quite a bit more than I thought I would, and I've sort of been keeping an eye out for the sequel ever since -- but it's gonna be a few more months before I have an opinion on it.


Geez, Dream a Little Dream is a film that I haven't thought about in forever! Anybody remember that one? Kind of crappy knockoff of Freaky Friday. I always enjoy seeing the Corey's, but that movie was not good. And if I'm being honest, I kind of forgot that a sequel had been made, I never saw it, but I'm guessing that it too will not end up being very good... but I still had to give it a go :)

I can't remember how many videos were brought home last month, so I can't say whether or not this was a more successful outing, but finding six this time was pretty good, certainly worth going that's for sure. And I found a couple of things for some future Halloween craft projects at The Dollar Tree, which is always a plus, now if I could just stay focused long enough to work on some of those projects...

***** BONUS CONTENT *****

My mom took a mini-vacation last week, and even though it turned into more of a working vacation, she still found some time to hit up a couple of thrift stores in the area, thrift stores that ended up yielding a couple of more videos for yours truly!



Generally speaking, I'm not huge fan of sports movies, well, at least not those that revolve around the big three -- but I will certainly give this still sealed 2-tape set a try. I've never seen either of these films, and was only familiar with the Jackie picture, although after reading the synopsis, I think that the Campanella biopic is going to be the better of the two.


I'm always down for retrospective's of stars from the golden era.


Body and Soul fits into the category of "been meaning to see it for years, but have never had the opportunity to do so"... it's always nice to be able to remove something from that list :)

Many thanks to my mom (she doesn't read the blog, but it's still good to give public thanks) for the videos. And for anybody who might be interested, I went to Goodwill, and Big Lots, a couple of days after going to Serenity Thrift, both provided me with plenty of goodies (especially Big Lots), and both hauls will be shown in separate upcoming posts.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

14 comments:

  1. Forget Twitter and enjoy the 42 hard-hitting minutes of that football video!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I now want a shirt that says "Forget Twitter" :)

      Delete
  2. All of the crazy penalties are killing my interest in football. I know it's to protect the players... but I miss the 80's and 90's when defenders were allowed to pop guys. My only wish is that the NFL would take care of all of their alumni... since they sacrificed their bodies for the sake of the league.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't been able to watch football in years because of all the rule changes. I've maintained for many years now that players should be given a folder/video with all of the most recent data on head injury's before they can declare themselves eligible for the draft. If they still want to play after they've read/watched everything, have them sign a document that says they understand what could happen to them, and they are willing to accept the risks, and then let them play the game the way it is supposed to be played. I guarantee that like 99.9% of them would still want to play even after hearing of the potential dangers. And I also think that the NFL should take care of the guys who do end up having problems, after all, the league did make a sh*t ton of money off of them, certainly more than it would cost to take care of a few guys from time to time.

      Delete
  3. Oh dang, that looks like some fun entertainment right there! Love what you find. VHS has to be making a comeback soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They have sort of, unfortunately it's been because of hipsters though :(

      Delete
  4. Forget Twitter?? Talk about a jaw dropping statement. Enjoy the NFL video. I'm all for the bone jarring hits from football of yesteryear. Discovery School videos are way after my time. We watched videos that showed us if we were ever under nuclear attack to hide under our desks and we'd be safe there. Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith together? That alone makes this a great movie although, I'd through that cover out. Not a huge fan of Tim Allen. You can read all about why here.... https://www.nndb.com/people/279/000025204/ Your mom has great taste. Here choice of videos was astounding. That Robinson/Campanella video looks like a great thing to watch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was Allen's past. He has totally changed his life around bringing God into his life and has spoken about his past issues in an interview. Wished I had a link for it.

      Delete
    2. Marc: Yeah, wild, isn't it? We didn't have Discovery videos when I was in school either, but I can't remember who made the one's that we did have, so I guess it doesn't really matter. It's funny, you had the Cold War stuff drilled to you, and growing up in Oregon, we had the mystical/probably never going to happen mega earthquake aka "the big one" drilled into us.

      That's interesting website, curious to know how you came about it? I don't mind giving people second chances, so Tim Allen's past doesn't bother me all that much. Plus, he seems to get a lot of negative press because of his political leanings, and I don't think that's right -- especially when most celebrities have skeletons in their respective closets, and those who happen to lean left (or tow the company line) rarely get put on blast. That website of yours was a perfect example of this, I typed in a few names of some left leaning folks with known shady backgrounds, and yet none of it was covered on there... wonder why?

      Matt: As I just mentioned, I'm all for second chances (in most cases), and I don't really care why someone decides to change, all that matters is that they do.

      Delete
    3. I should also probably point out, just in case anybody gets any funny ideas, that I have no political leanings -- I'm just pointing out a thing that I've noticed, an interesting observation if you will.

      Delete
  5. Now you need the third Santa Clause. I enjoyed them all. Of course I really dig the Ducktales tape for sure. I need to find a thrift shop to visit with all of your great success.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Didn't even know that there was a third one! Almost every area has multiple thrift stores, so you shouldn't be having to look too hard for one. Obviously they're not all created equally, but the odds are high that you'd be able to find something of interest at one of the one's near you.

      Delete
  6. your mom is quite cool. btw, Burgess Meredith is one of my fave actors. his twilight zone appearances are among my fave episodes. "time enough at last..."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Him breaking his glasses always made me so damn sad, enough so that I can't even watch that episode anymore.

      Delete