And Now, Why I Adore the CBS/Fox Video Collection

In the last of these remembrances of Australian VHS Brands, I take a look at what is arguably my favorite one of them all.

And that is the CBS/Fox Video Collection.

My fondness for this particular brand like the Village Roadshow brand started from my early years and a copy of "Give my Regards to Broad Street" which starred and was written by Paul McCartney and also starred our own Bryan Brown.

But it actually wasn't the film itself that took my attention it was one of the previews before it that did the job and it was for Return of the Jedi as the preview they used to promote it on their releases was the re release trailer from 1985 that started with the streaks of entering into Hyperspace and as a young child that image stayed with me.

A few years now pass and it's 1995 or thereabouts and I find myself in my Pop's house going through his video collection one afternoon and I found a couple of CBS/Fox tapes in it.

The two tapes he had from the CBS/Fox Video Collection were "Romancing the Stone" and "Revenge of the Nerds" and they grew on me there and then due to the lettering on the front label of the tape as well as the warning label on the top sticker as well as the small engraving of the logo on the top of the tape itself (CBS/Fox releases from that era have them so if you have one be sure to look for it, it's not hard to find.)

Needless to say I thought to myself "I wonder if either of these tapes will have that trailer with the streaks at the start on them" and I put both of them in the machine and sadly it wasn't either of them but the experience of those is still powerfully imprinted in my memory today from the background that looked like tiles you would get for your kitchen floor that had the typed out blue font for the warning at the start to the logo that came bursting onto the screen with the fanfare blaring (which I'm sure scared a few of us as young kids.)

And then came the announcement of "And Now, More Previews from the CBS/Fox Video Collection" and the letters came forging and at first you didn't quite know what they were and then you saw the word "Previews" come flying onto the screen and it was flashed up like it was flashlights in a city somewhere, it felt like an experience plus my Pop's lounge room was the right size to make that experience feel more real to you plus at the end of both of those tapes there was another warning and then a reprise of the logo which reminded you to rewind the tape before returning it to your video library.

A couple of years pass once more and it is 1997 and I was taken to the video shop to hire The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as I had now become a big fan of the Star Wars trilogy and I was really keen to see Jedi again as well as Empire for the first time as I hadn't seen it prior to then and when I opened up the case to Jedi I saw that it looked a lot like the two tapes my Pop had and sadly all I could see was the after film previews as the beginning of the tape was too far damaged to be able to watch and that included the start of the film, it wasn't until I found a copy to keep 11 years later did I learn what previews were in front of it needless to say I was a bit disappointed.

That year also KFC ran a special Johnny Quest promotion with their kids meal and one of the prizes you got was 3 free rentals of Family and Children films from the video shop it was 1 each week, this would become my introduction to the later CBS/Fox releases that the yellow and blue colored spines on them plus the ad for those just before the film started.

But lastly, my last memory of the CBS/Fox Video collection comes from the year 2000 and I find myself in my local video store and I see this image of Kurt Russell almost sticking out in front of me so I take a look at it and it's of Big Trouble in Little China which was one of their releases, needless to say when I got the chance I rented it as well as Mario Party 2 for the N64 and I enjoyed both at the time and 9 years later a copy of the CBS/Fox release of Big Trouble became mine to own.

And so, I wrap up this look back at my favorite VHS brands in Australia, it's been great to be able to share these memories with those that read them as they represent an era of films that I really love and hopefully for any Aussies reading this or any of the others, it brings back some memories of your own.

Please rewind this cassette before returning it to your Video Library.