VHS when it came out in the 80's, it was revolutionary.... so revolutionary that the things cost upwards of 80 dollars or more. Don't forget that movies also stayed in theaters much longer than they did today, be they successful or failures. As such, movies on VHS were considered a luxury until they slowly started producing more and more and VCR's were more common place.
But still, I'm pretty sure they didn't stay in theaters for more than a year. An episode of Everybody Hates Chris made a mention of Ghostbusters coming out on video four years later... Still confused by that line, depending on if it was true.
Considering the high price, I wonder if that's the reason many 1980s releases of television shows had only one episode each (Fraggle Rock is the only example I can think of off-hand, but I feel there are others). I also wonder if the higher retail price explains how they were able to clear the music rights for "All of Me" and "You've Got a Friend" on the Gonzo Presents Muppet Weird Stuff video but not for The Muppet Show: Season One.
Drtooth said:
I can't remember how long it took for movies to hit video (bringing Snow White to VHS was so revolutionary, it took them well into the 90's due to different studio politics). I remember Disney movies took almost a year and a half to get to VHS, but that was, again, well into the 90's.
I only remember '90s Disney films coming out a year after the release (I know Pinnochio was rereleased in summer 1992, and I recall that video rerelease coming by the end of the year... Maybe I'm remembering that wrong). I'm pretty sure that Oliver and Company was the last Disney animated feature to get a theatrical rerelease without any in-between video release. I'm pretty sure The Little Mermaid came out on video in 1990, The Jungle Book in 1991 (after the rerelease), The Rescuers Down Under in '91 or '92 (can't remember if it came out in '90 or '91), and so on.
About a year ago I read on wikipedia that in the early 1980s when Disney began releasing its titles on video and started its own cable channel, they made a list of animated films to not release on The Disney Channel or home video, due to the fact that Disney was still releasing its animated features in theaters every few years. I think only two animated films were allowed for video release then, but the list of what not to release on video kept getting shorter and shorter. The few films rereleased in the 1990s (Jungle Book, Great Mouse Detective, Snow White, Oliver and Company... I guess I should also list Pinocchio though it already had a VHS release before being rereleased in theaters in 1992) got video releases a year later.
And speaking of the fact that Disney wouldn't release certain films on TV or video back then, I recently learned that until a few months ago Snow White had never been broadcast on television. I'd never realised that before.
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