Last time, I posted an article about going to thrift stores buying physical media in an age where companies wanted the modern consumer to forego collectivity for convenience. Well, I told you so… thrift stores provide extra savings and gives you full control of ownership. It doesn’t matter if a CD is scratched and scuffed to oblivion because the quality of its content doesn’t change. In this post, I will run through everything that I carefully found during this thirty-minute ‘raid’ that was worth an $800 value for about forty bucks. That should convince anyone who is new to thrifting, or want to start going into thrifting for a wealth of entertainment content in the form of legacy physical media. Buy just enough of these goodies and you’re on your way to building a mass media empire that is fully independent from any multi-billion dollar corporation.
First off, the video content…
VHS tapes are still plentiful but the longer they’ve been around, the fewer good quality copies there are in circulation due to age and natural decay. Still, tbat doesn’t mean you can’t get some playable copies that were stored properly and well kept. A pair of 1950s movie classics GUYS AND DOLLS and RIO BRAVO are already in my disc archives, so I really got these for the box cover art, simplistic as they are. In fact, they’re great souvenir items! The tapes appeared in very good condition, however.
Third and lastly is half-hour filler called STREET MEET, which is a glimpse of 1960s-70s muscle cars. Simitar distributed ‘special interest’ videos by the hundreds during the 80s and 90s, and the cheap production values are definitive of analog technology in its era. Who knows how many of these are still circulating in thrift stores and yard sales today?
Onto the movie discs we all know and love…
I found only one Blu-ray disc at the thrift, which is normal considering you have had more Americans adopting DVDs on a 10-12 year head start. That means the quantity of superior Blu-ray discs on sale are going to be dwarfed in number compared to inferior DVDs. If you are a fan of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, then collecting his movies would be a wise thing to do. Since we’re talking family fare, TOOTH FAIRY just seems so out of bounds for a movie that stars ‘The Rock’ along with Ashley Judd and the great Julie Andrews. And since 20th Century-Fox actually went out and released it on disc prior to selling itself out to Disney — still stubborn over putting out Fox product on physical media — it’s a keeper in its own right.
Most of the DVDs I’d buy would reconcile with my existing ones that are on superior formats under the same title as part of doing “same and different” comparison posts on social. Fan-worthy classics like ENTER THE DRAGON and CADDYSHACK have enjoyed mass circulation on home video. What really struck me about the Bruce Lee film on the ‘25th Anniversary’ DVD is that it was feature-rich: an original 1973 behind the scenes docufilm, plus four original trailers and seven TV spots compared to the more recent ‘50th Anniversary’ release on 4K that had none of those except for an intro and commentary ported over. I’m a fan of movie trailers but I usually view them after the movie because they give too much away. Of course, the main difference here is that the recent disc release contains a theatrical cut that was trimmed by only three minutes. Meanwhile, a 4K release of CADDYSHACK is still pending.
There are the occasional oddball films I usually find such as JANKY PROMOTERS and SUPER CAPERS from the Artisan-turned-Lionsgate sausage factory of 2000s made-for-video slop. Other times, it’s a classic so highly regarded as the WW2 film THE EAGLE HAS LANDED, which I could add to the growing pile of 4K movies someday. A made-for-television Christmas movie starring Whoopi Goldberg? Holiday flicks still pack some spirited punches no matter how tasteful or tasteless. But some people would be willing to toss away their inspirational dramas like 8 SECONDS in favor of decluttering their shelf spaces by eight feet. Or, perhaps bringing in some better movies. Whatever the reason, a future generation would likely go out and catch a glimpse of sitcom sweetie Kat Dennings in a musical rom-com once we get a 2 BROKE GIRLS revival. That only took me two dollars worth of rediscovering,
Oddly enough, it occurred to me that I found THE WRAITH, a 40-year old guilty pleasure on a bare bones DVD that was once distributed by a long-defunct ‘public domain’ distributor called Platinum, and it’s likely a poorly mastered version of it. That’s the kind of flick I’d rarely be finding at a non-profit thrift store that is mostly a charity drive. The only thing that didn’t change when compared to the more recent Blu-ray copy from Vestron Video was the oft misleading artwork of four teenagers on the cover, which always made me wonder if this was going to be a movie about aliens from another planet. Turns out it was about a deadly race car with supernatural forces.
The final section of the day’s haul consists of compact discs…
I was overjoyed at seeing a vast number of good quality copies of 80s and 90s material this time around, and I even found a 60s rock compilation, but I had to scale this batch down to twelve. It’s pretty easy to find thrift store music from timeless voices you were familiar with, but it does take a little detective work. There would be lots of Christmas and spiritual filler mixed in with all the pop and country that are high in abundance. Best of all, they don’t break the bank!
How anyone could possibly throw out a donation of Phil Collins’ 1985 pop masterpiece ‘No Jacket Required’ is beyond me, an album that sold over 25 million copies and remains influential to this present day. The same thing goes for Pat Benatar’s greatest hits album ‘Best Shots’ — this woman was fierce! Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders is a very close rival with a singles collection — it’s too bad ‘My City Was Gone’ is nowhere to found, but the album’s still got kick. I counted five hits on the Richard Marx debut album from 1987 — he and Taylor Dayne were vibrant hitmakers in the power pop/AC circuit. Two fine rock albums from Tom Petty and Don Henley — both released in 1989 — still provide hooks for the most casual listener.
The 90s offered something more diversified. You had the funky divas like En Vogue doing their take on girl group R&B with plenty of sass — not long ago I found a VHS copy of their videos at the same store! 1995 was an eventful year for emerging modern rock artists: Oasis has been getting a revived interest recently, and you may want to think twice before throwing away their classic U.S. debut. And the Goo Goo Dolls were just entering mainstream radio with ‘Name’. Tonic was another modern rock group relegated to ‘one-hit wonder’ status with the hit “If You Can Only See” — that song isn’t on this follow-up album from 1999, however. I’m not sure many listeners were familiar with Chalk Farm, but the band’s single ‘Lie On Lie’ was a highly remembered staple on adult alternative radio late in the decade — sadly, they were short-lived. I know I could have found this CD at the thrift store and while I was browsing, a catchy song from this titled album was playing over the loudspeakers: ‘World Clique’ from the criminally underrated dance party group Deee-Lite. Guess they didn’t have it.
One more thing… the store had just begun to roll out some vinyl in the sales floor. The odoriferous smell of vinyl. A lot of what I usually find are LPs from Christian artists and schmaltzy stuff like Lawrence Welk. But this one released in early 1974 has ‘vintage’ plastered all over it. The album LP entitled ‘Hotcakes’ from Carly Simon featured two major hits, her collab single ‘Mockingbird’ with then-spouse James Taylor, and the ballad ‘Haven’t Got Time For The Pain’. Some people buy vinyl just for the artwork alone and I can’t blame ‘em enough. So if you see a record cover that looks classy as classic, get it before it flies away like a mockingbird. Vinyl has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years and it’s a sheer sign that physical media is gaining ground in a modern world where streaming is taking hold.
And there you have it, your thrift store haul and presentation for this post. Which movie or music title would you like to find in a thrift shop, cheap as they come… and go? Don’t be afraid to leave your responses in the comment section even if you have to make a wild guess. Good items come and go very, very quickly in these places, and you never know what treasures you might be spotting. Happy thrifting!
JASIMO_DISCMAN 
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