Why is this the best VHS tape in the history of all VHS tapes? Because it could have likely been the last one that the person who taped over little Matthew’s 1st B’day party ever taped in their life. It couldn’t be because they taped Ghostbusters II over it, since the movie had its funny moments but it couldn’t hold a candle to the first one. Back in the day though when you needed a blank tape to record a movie or a show that you really wanted to watch later a lot of people struggled with the issue of having a blank tape nearby to use. So all too often this trick was used once it was discovered that you could record over a tape. The quality of the movie at that point wasn’t all that great but it was the act of doing this without consent that really ticked people off.
Dance recitals, birthdays, anniversary parties, and all sorts of special events fell prey to the dreaded taping over in an effort to make use of something that no one was watching. That’s the strangest part about it, people went nuts when they figured out that their special moment had been taped over, but before that they couldn’t have cared less. These special moments that they lived and could remember just fine were captured on VHS for them to watch over and over again…and they never did. Those tapes would typically sit on a shelf collecting dust until they moved or until someone came along and did something like this. And then the world ended because that special moment that they never watched after the first, initial time, if even then, was gone. Beta was in fact one of the best tapes you could get at one point, but the tragedy was that they were so easy to tape over that moments like tended to be like lighting a keg of dynamite and waiting for it to explode.
If any of you ever owned a VHS player, and there are still a lot of us that did back in the day, you might know the frustration of putting in a VHS tape expecting to see a precious moment and find yourself looking at something else entirely. That would prompt the slow, shocked realization that the tape had been used again, and the eventual look of blame towards whoever had done it. At that point the culprit might try to come up with a quick argument about how the tape never even got looked at anymore or that they didn’t see the label before they put it in to record. That excuse usually didn’t work since most people tended to put the label out so that they could figure out what it was. But there’s a good reason why this VHS was the king of all VHS tapes, it was a lot of fun to see the look on the person’s face when they had to explain just why they taped over something so important, unless you happened to be that person.
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