And nobody would get your references

Goonies, but it was recorded from TV and you had to switch tapes at about the pirate ship.

Police Academy 1-7 but mostly 4.

I had the same thing with video games. My dad got a free promotional copy of Morrowind from Fry's. I didn't have a computer/ laptop, but every summer, my dad would let me use his on our road trips. That game made me want to learn so much about anthropology, biology, history, mythology, etc... I played for hundreds of hours and never even came close to finishing.

Me and the other Brave Little Toaster kids ended up a bit weird.

The Craft. I'm pretty sure Fairuza Balk is responsible for awakening my goth fetish.

The Sandlot for me

Short Circuit and Flight of the Navigator. Had them both on one tape and I'd sit down and watch it all in one sitting.

Uncle Buck Great movie.

I would tell people about Death Race 2000 and they'd look at me like I was crazy.

And it was recorded off the tv so you had to fast forward through commercials about clap-on clap-off lights

And I'm actively trying to go back to that. I ripped all of our old DVDs and Blurays and cancelled most of our streaming services. I told my kids that we can buy pretty much anything they want (so they don't miss out), provided it's not an exclusive.

The net result is that my kids really like Clue (1985) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008).

I had an aunt with the Disney channel and HBO that recorded almost everything. It was like a home video store at her house, probably hundreds of tapes that she let friends and family borrow. She have me a spare copy of the Disney animated Robin Hood with all the animals and I must have watched it a hundred times.

Surf ninjas. It was the best kind of b movie fever dream.

Hook. I can still quote most of it from memory.

Several dozen? Rookie numbers.

I mean... Streaming Frozen nearly continuously was 100% a thing just a few years ago.

Milo and Otis, Toys, and The Goonies. Watched those 3 movies a thousand times.

Three Ninjas. We all wanted to be Colt when we played ninjas later

I'll buy that for a dollar.

I liked the VHS tape that had the naked women recorded onto it.

I really liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. My parents got it for me on VHS at some point and I watched it so much it literally wore out the tape. Then my parents got it for me on DVD.

Can't even watch it on streaming because they only ever have the subtitled version, and the dub is vastly superior for the dialogue. The subs cut so much flavor and poetry out of the dialogue that it becomes super boring and just the basic gist of what's going on.

Before that, the "obscure" VHS my parents had that I watched a lot was Monty Python's Holy Grail. We spent years trying to understand what the "witch" says when she is found guilty and only knew for certain what it was years later when they released a special edition DVD and we watched it with the subtitles on. "It's a fair cop."

For me it was Cocktail. I was a latch key kid, and sometimes you just got bored and hunted around your parents shit.

Turns out 11 year old me was REALLY interested in watching a shirtless Tom Cruise throw around bottles of alcohol in a tropical paradise.

Sharkboy and Lavagirl

The Peanut Butter Solution

Ok but the Indian in the cupboard came with a key for the plastic VHS case, and a couple of toys from the movie. So my love was justified.

Worst child actor ever though

I haven't watched Ice Age in twenty years but if you put it on the TV I bet I could quote every line from it. My mom loved that movie when we saw it in theater so we got it on DVD, then we must have watched it a hundred times after that. It was her favorite movie by far.

We also watched a good bit of Madagascar when that one came out but Ice Age was the enduring classic.

Big Trouble in Little China.

We considered it to be on the same level as Ghostbusters. The ending showed a monster as a stowaway on the old Porkchop Express. We all couldn't wait for the inevitable sequel where Jack Burton got into some Big Trouble somewhere else. Only found out as an adult much later that it was a really unsuccessful movie and there was no way they'd make a sequel.

It's all in the reflexes!

An American Tale. Watched it a ton in St Vincent, then I moved to America as a child so there was a close feeling to it. (Just to be clear, I was born in Brooklyn, NY, but my family moved out of the states to St Vincent within 2 years. So my earliest memories are not from the US, despite being born here).

And for those of us who predate VHS it was books! I was hooked on the Lord of the Rings!

Did this with spiderwick and bridge to tarabithia but I wouldn't call these particularly obscue.

Also did this with a movie that I can only describe as space jumanji as well

Krull

And nobody would get your references

You can still get that, just follow obscures enough hobbies and reference memes from it.

Something something i use arch google en passant robot girlyman clem

I watched Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore so many times at a bit too young.

Also, The Jungle Book starring Sabu. A black and white live action film apparently from 1942.

My parents made me a VHS tape with like 9 movies on it and I would watch it constantly. I was a sickly child, so I was stuck in bed a lot. That tape was great.

Labyrinth and The Black Hole.

For me, it was What About Bob?

The old Asterix movies for me. The racism makes them hard to watch now that I'm grown up.

Tron

Just growing up thinking everybody else has also seen The Ugly Dachshund. A movie where I'm convinced everybody who was in it is now dead.

You kids with your fancy, newfangled VHS machines. When I was a kid we had two channels of black and white TV and programming started at three in the afternoon.

Dance the magic dance

Toooomorrow tomorrow I love ya, tomorrow, you're only a day aaaawayyyyy -the song I hate yet is imprinted on me. Thank you younger sibling for that. It was also mom that broke that CD, RIP (Rest in pieces you over played movie)

Whoops Dad accidentally recorded over our bootleg copy of land before time with porn :)

Fern Gully -WAM Sky Dancers -BOOM The Black Cauldron -HAZAA!

Is there any modern equivalent? Do we even have any shared culture anymore or are we all in our own rabbit holes?

For me it's lethal weapon 1, my uncle would play it at family gatherings. He has this sick sound system at the time and you can hear the brass casings hit the ground it's awesome.

Top Secret! dubbed in Galician.

Permanently Deleted

I'm 19. Those movies are:

• "Konferenz der Tier" ("Conference of the animals", some kinda obscure children's movie)
• Bambi
• Lassie
• The wonderful adventures of nils

And later:

• Lucky number slevin
• Everything from Quentin Tarantino

All of those are in our possession in the form of optical media, as well as a 0% legal digital copy.

When I was a kid, my parents wouldn't let me stay up late enough to watch Adult Swim, but they would let me set the VCR to record it on a few blank tapes. And that's how I first watched anime that wasn't on Toonami.

Country Bears was weird and literally no one talks about it

Finding out other people had the same film unlocked several friendships for me

For me the more "obscure" ones were The Indian and the Cupboard, Small Soldiers, Jingle All The Way, James and the Giant Peach. Not that I referenced it hard or anything.

scamper the penguin

I have a distinct memory of a 3rd grade project where we made posters about ourselves. My favorite TV show was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The reaction was something like “that’s not really a TV show but we’ll allow it.” I certainly watched it on our TV, probably with a VHS recording of it being on broadcast TV.

The thief and the cobbler!

we had See Spot Run (23% on rotten tomatoes) but it got taped over by another movie "accidentally" when I was 7 and I haven't seen it since...

having read the plot on Wikipedia, it features a lot more references to testicles than I remember

Demolition Man for some fucking reason, also Running Man. I dont even know, also my grandmother gets the two mixed up and mishmashed in her head. We still make weird taco bell references.

For me it was some train movie made with model trains with a conductor that went "oh no" and a movie about talking real life construction equipment when I was young.

Then when I was a bit older, we watched Galavants and Willy the Sparrow.

I wonder if anyone else on the fediverse has even heard of these 😅

The Boy Who Could Fly.

We were also defined by Sunday spaghetti westerns, and Kung Fu Theater. We thought all bad guys were uglier than the good guys, and every problem could be solved by shooting or kicking someone.

Puff the Magic Dragon

It's like a fever dream, but we definitely had it on VHS

Now we're in the List of things we "own" on Amazon prime and watch over and over era

Dudes(1987). Features Jon Cryer and B the Flea!

I had many such movies. The most obscure among them probably being "The child who wanted to be a Bear", a Franco-Danish animation film which doesn't even have a Wikipedia page in English. (It was already DVD and not tape tho)

The Swan Princess. It haunts me.

I believe it's also partially responsible for my young and lifelong rebellion against someone complimenting my appearance. Fine. You find me nice to look at. That's a hill a beans. What else.

they forgot to add "..and is now embedded to your core being."

Jawbreaker and the brave little toaster

My dad was a film historian. My entire childhood was filled with movies none of my contemporaries had seen.

Ill go ye one better. When i was a kid there was a movie theater in ft worth tx called Isis. They had 1 dollar matinees that us kids were allowed to sit in. Got watch s lot of blacksploitation flicks and really odd "c" grade scifi.

Bee Movie Ghost Dad The Wizard Secret of NIMH 2 The Ernest Series

the internet makes this possible 1000x

If anything, we have more access to obscure content. We have obscure movies we've found streaming and watch repeatedly. We love Trolljegeren and Interstate 60.

We also still have some weirdo discs too like the live action Mario movie.

Zoobilee fucking Zoo...

- I am not from anywhere near North America.

Oh ho, and yet I, a parent, can still put my thumb on the streaming scale. My daughter right now is watching old Nick Jr. Cartoons, playing Mario 64 (as well as a 2yo anyway), and the untitled goose game.

She also watched old seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm with me since I had it running, though I probably don't want her to adopt Larry David vibes...

Was lucky enough to get a VHS copy of Lupin the Third and the Castle of Cagliostro when I was like 7 or 8. Man I must have watched that tape over 100 times easily.

The buttercream gang.

If you grew up mormon, you knew the buttercreamer gang. Also, The peanutbutter solution.

• edit to add another obscure movie.

Rupert and the Frog Song. Three terrifying stories. It was a Thursday night... I was working late...

I had weirdly encyclopedic knowledge of old Finnish comedies because my late father was into that stuff.

Also: Not an obscure film, but to me, the definitive version of Terminator 2 was the one I recorded off TV. I have it on Blu-Ray, but it's just not the same.

For movies, it was Condor Man for me. TV it was Silver Hawks.

I'll join in on the obscure movies that defined my childhood and teen years...

Texas Across the River, Warriors of the Wind (horrible cut and dub of Nauiscaa of the Valley of the Wind), Sea Prince and Fire Child (we rented the tape so much that eventually they sold it to us because we were also the last ones to rent it), Anime version of The Little Mermaid, animated Hobbit and Return of the King, Fairies, Mio and the Land of Far Away

... That's all of the obscure ones I can think of at the moment.

Most of my standups are just people referencing 90s movies.

I feel bad for the other generations

I watched shrek many times

A year in Provence, 4 tape box set.

My sexual awakening was "bon jour, I am Raul the Pool Boy"

Not Quite Human

The Monster Squad was the best. Found it in the $5 bin later, and its still rad!