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So, I get home from the store a while back and I dive into the bright yellow shopping bag and whip out my Planet Of The Apes: The Series DVDs. Reaching into my desk drawer, I grab the letter opener and begin the ritualistic dance that I perform each and every stinkin’ time I encounter those God-forsaken semi-transparent security tape thingies. What two-bit, redheaded stepchild of the Marquee De Sade came up with those hellish freakin’ contraptions? I mean, really, it was bad enough when there was only one adhered along the top edge of the DVD case. But now, they stick them anywhere and everywhere they can. Planet Of The Apes; The Series consists of four discs and I swear there were like 17 security tapes on every side of that case and they were as wide as Peter Tork’s belts, back when his band was countering the Beatles’ Rubber Soul with Hey, Hey, We’re The Monkees.
But, that’s not what I came to bitch about…
I finally get the case open and toss Disc One into the DVD player. I’m ready for one hot-dang time in the old town, tonight. Next thing I know, I’m about 15 minutes into the pilot episode, Escape From The Future and I’m realizing that, as big a Planet Of The Apes fan as I am, I was never too hot on the TV series. Oh, sure, there were apes and all… and the guns were cool looking… and the great Roddy McDowall was in it… Aw, son of a whore! I did it again. Not to date myself [I did enough of that in High School, if you know what I mean and I think you do] but I grew up in a time when the movies one brought home were seven minute condensations of Universal horror films. They were subtitled, with no sound, on 8MM film reels that you’d show on the wall of your room with your handy little movie projector that usually took an hour to set up and a day and a half to focus. There were a few of us that had projectors and we loved showing those movies. My friend, Al, actually had a sound projector. He, of course, was our King.
As we got a bit older, we bought or rented 16MM projectors and started collecting reels and reels of trailers. I still remember paying $22.00 for a twenty second Outer Limits trailer. The three-minute Jaws trailer went for $45.00! To buy an entire 16MM film, it cost $350.00 - $400.00. If you wanted to collect movies, that was what you did… period. But, we were held in high esteem. We were film collectors willing to work for months just to buy a single movie. We were invited to parties and these films got us everything… except laid.
Then came video. When Betamax and VHS VCRs came out they were over twelve hundred bucks each. The first High Grade blank videotape I bought cost $24.00. Hell, after paying $350.00 for a movie, the thought of three movies for $24.00 was better than sex… or so I imagined at the time. The close group of us all had VCRs and, again, we were semi-gods! And when we found out that we could dupe movies from one deck to another, people flocked to us in hopes that we would find it in our hearts to make a copy of one of their favorite movies, just for them. It got us high praise. It got us local admiration… still didn’t get us laid, though. But, at least we could dupe porn!
When, in the early to mid nineties, video became too pedestrian for us videophiles, Laserdiscs were invented. The price was startling. Some movies went for $100.00 to $150.00 but the extras were great, the quality was impressive and almost no one else had them. Again, we were stars.
DVDs ruined all of that. You see, back when you really had to work your ass off to buy a movie, it was easier to make the smart choices. Try spending $350.00 on a movie you think is just okay. But now I can walk into any store and grab Planet Of The Apes: The Series off of the shelf. I look at that packaging. Very glossy, very cool. Man, there are four discs in there. There’s a decent amount of heft to it. It feels solid in the hand. Great shot of Roddy on the back cover. The entire series in my hot little mitt. Even the 14th episode, The Liberator, not shown during the show’s initial 1974 run. Over 640 minutes of apes… All for around thirty bucks. The next thing I know, I own it and Fox is just a bit richer.
That’s when it hits me that this all has to stop. I’m just going to have to buckle under and make better DVD choices. But I’m weak. I’m man enough to admit that. And admitting the problem is the first step in fixing the problem. If the prices of DVDs aren’t going to go up so high that I can no longer afford them, if entire television series’ from my youth are going to be available for under forty bucks, if no none is going to enact a Federal or State law prohibiting me from spending over 89.7% of my salary on DVDs, I’m going to need to get a handle on this, myself. And it’s going to have to be soon. I’m running out of space, I’m running out of money and, God help me, I’m running out of dignity.
Hello. My name is Rich and I’m a discaholic. It’s been 17 minutes since I’ve bought a DVD.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a TV series to watch.
D’Entre les Morts,
Rich
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