Movies you watched about a million times as a kid

I'm specifically thinking of how (in my family) when we first got a VCR, we only owned like four movies on videotape so my sister and I would just watch those over and over and over. The ones I specifically remember are:

* The Goonies - which I watched so many times that I can still recite all the dialogue of the credits sequence, as well as both of the big emotional speeches and assorted other dialogue, from memory
* Revenge of the Pink Panther - one of the later, not very good Pink Panther movies, starring Dyan Cannon.

Back to the Future, until my parents stopped letting me watch it.

'Moonraker' (007) - seemingly shown every Bank Holiday for three years in the mid 80's.

I don't remember much about Revenge of the Pink Panther other than:
* Peter Sellers dressing up as the Godfather and doing a Godfather impression
* Peter Sellers dressing up as a generic Asian guy and doing a racist Asian guy impression
* climax in a fireworks warehouse

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY

and

THE FROG PRINCE

West Side Story

star trek II

star trek III

oh shit I just remembered we also had a tape with some really old Popeye cartoons on them and I would watch those a lot too

not star trek IV tho

goonies and back to the future, yes.

also the burton/keaton batman, ghostbusters, gremlins.

for a while my sister had this thing where she'd pick one movie and watch it every day for a couple of months. at very loud volumes. rewinding and replaying her favorite parts over and over again.

to this day, the mere mention of the rikki lake "hairspray" and the original "bye bye birdie" sends me running for a locked, quiet room.

police academy 3 & 4
beetlejuice

Both DuckTales tv movies and several Christmas specials (including the Claymation Christmas special with the California Raisins).

I also remember watching Scrooged a bunch of times

- neverending story
- dragnet (my cousins were ALWAYS watching it)
- explorers
- goonies

- enemy mine (for some reason?)
- star trek 3 (always on tv)

• jaws
• the shining
• repo man

- enemy mine (for some reason?)

hahahah oh man, me too

also yes neverending story.

- Willow
- Back to the Future
- Crocodile Dundee
- Rambo: First Blood Part II

Ones that immediately come to mind:

Neverending Story
Princess Bride
Dragnet
Predator
Terminator
One of the Police Academy movies, can't remember which
Lots of random cartoons -- esp Smurfs and old Donald Duck shorts

Jaws, Jaws II, Arsenic and Old Lace, Harvey

All edited for TV.

seemingly shown every Bank Holiday for three years in the mid 80's.

see also DARYL for another UK bank holiday staple in the mid/late 80s, and I fear still the film I've seen most times, ever

if not that, then Beverly Hills Cop (at just about every birthday party I went to aged 10) or Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (actually through choice)

Princess Bride
Beetlejuice
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Heathers
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Blithe Spirit
A Matter of Life and Death
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Hunger
Rocky Horror
Funny Face
West Side Story
Grease

Princess Bride is another one, I think I know every line of dialogue.

Also: Dirty Dancing.

I'm almost positive I didn't HAVE a favorite movie except for the TNT re-make of Treasure Island with Christian Bale which I MUST have watched 20 times at least. But that's probably it. I don't remember anything else standing out, but we were discouraged from watching TV and didn't have a VCR until I was in maybe...high school?

OMG Ferris Bueller's Day Off, definitely. Also, The Breakfast Club.

And as a younger teen, I watched Heathers and Pump up the Volume constantly.

We must have had a VCR by 1990 which is when Treasure Isl came out. So I was in jr high. Up until then, nothing resonates.

drop dead fred

top hat

No feature films, but I saw just about every Three Stooges and Little Rascals two-reeler in existence about 5x each. (Thank you, Channel 52 in Corona.)

I watched this movie called Scavenger Hunt probably 20+ times as a younger kid. Don't remember much about it other than the name, would be interested in seeing it again to find out what was so intriguing to me about it.

Dirty Dancing would be my little sister's answer to that question.

Drop Dead Fred and Stand by Me were my cousin's - she is 35.

I completely forgot about that movie! I know I watched it a few times when it was on HBO...I didn't really watch videos so much as a kid, usually just whatever was playing on HBO and/or Cinemax. xp

Back to the Future, Princess Bride and Labyrinth. Also The Sound of Music, Song of the South (cringe) and West Side Story.

Wizard of Oz and Sound of Music hardly count - always on at Christmas/Easter.

Sleeping Beauty/101 Dalmatians easily my favourite animated Disney.

For me it is Dumbo -- if I see it on television, it can still provoke a tidal wave of tears.

omg dumbo, so true. and little mermaid. and sleeping beauty.

lady and the tramp!

Trading Places
Breakfast Club
Airplane!

This would be pre-VCR era for me, early eighties when we just got cable. Top three would have to be The Cannonball Run, The Great Muppet Caper and, a little later, Krull. Oh, and 9 to 5.

fern gully

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Heathers
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Monty Python's The Life of Brian
Porky's
The Breakfast Club

Not a single 'Beastmaster' yet? - That thing was on cable, like, every afternoon ...

we had three vhs copies of ghostbusters because i guess i watched it so many times that the first two wore out

Neverending Story, Labyrinth, Grease, Aladdin, Speed, European Vacation

^fancy boy, had cable telleevizhohn
xps

Superman II
Clash of the Titans
The Beastmaster
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Wizard of Oz

My parents got their first VCR in 1984: a Fisher as heavy as an elephant. I wore out Clash of the Titans.

also - The Cat from Outer Space - because it was about a cat. And it was from outer space. And i thought Stephen what's-his-name who would go on to be in the first Star Trek movie was really cute.

Oh I left out:

The Dark Crystal
Labrynth
Willow
Princess Bride

am i the only one that once i got to my teens, i only wanted to see movies in the theater? Like, watching them on vcr/tv was too much like watching TV, which was something my parents did a lot, and i thought my parents were lame and tried as much as possible to avoid emulating their behavior?

It wasn't until 1987 or so that a video rental place materialized in my area so, prior to that (or, up to about age 10) I was stuck with the ten or so movies that my parents taped for me from television (as in "edited for"). I watched several of these movies ALL the time: top three were probably Jaws, Caddyshack & The Karate Kid (all of which I still love btw).

POV: live action movies you loved loved loved when you were a small child, have not seen since you were a small child, and are in no particular hurry at all to see again

the sword & the sorcerer
excalibur
john carpenter's the thing
reanimator
ghostbusters
alien
blade runner
star trek 2: the wrath of khan
star wars/the empire strikes back
raiders of the lost ark
poltergeist
caddyshack
stripes
national lampoon's vacation
fast times at ridgemont high
valley girl
the breakfast club
sixteen candles
time bandits
the warriors
dead & buried
the hunger
48 hours
beverly hills cop
the jerk
young frankenstein
monty python and the holy grail
monty python's the meaning of life

The two films I most associate with being a kid are The Ten Commandments (on TV) and To Sir with Love (at the drive-in).

I know practically every line of dialogue to every single one of these films.

Beetlejuice
The Princess Bride
Star Wars 4,5,6
Animalympics
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom/The Last Crusade (for some reason, we didn't have Raiders in the house)
Clueless
Mallrats
Demolition Man
Terminator 2
ET
Superman
Batman/Batman Returns
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Sound of Music
The Lion King
Beauty and the Beast
Home Alone/Home Alone 2
The Addams Family
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
My Girl

I was just thinking a few moments ago how despite not having seen Camp Nowhere since the 90s I can recite a bunch of the dialogue.

hahahahaha me too. There are a bunch of family/tween movies like this that they never seem to make anymore: Heavyweights, Little Rascals, The Mighty Ducks films, Casper, House Arrest, The Sandlot, Little Giants, the 3 Ninjas films... pretty sure there are more I'm forgetting.

ok i spent too much time watching TV and videos as a kid.

Beetlejuice

yeah, this one too

^^ you weren't exactly a kid when that came out, were you though, AB?

UHF

Me and my friends used to watch it again and again, we basically could quote any scene any time. I've rewatched it a couple of times, and some of the scenes feel kinda lame now, but some gags are still hella funny ("SUPPLIES!", "the turtle is nature's suction cup",Gandhi II, etc). It's always a bit weird to watch an episode of Seinfeld, as to me the guy who plays Kramer will always be Stanley Spadowski. His "new mop" monologue is one of the funniest performances I've ever seen in a movie.

I dug out The Life Of Brian the other day and realised I must've seen it probably about 15 times between the ages of 13 and 16.

you weren't exactly a kid when that came out, were you though, AB?

i am shocked (shocked!) to learn that beetlejuice came out in 1988, when i was 21 years of age! would have guessed like 82/83. my fucking memory just goes out the winda. but though i was probably too old, i watched it a zillion times in my post-childhood. in my defense, we never had a TV til i was like 10, and had no cable or VCR until i was in my teens. so A/V childhood was somewhat protracted...

i felt like i watched The Red Balloon a million times as a kid - because they'd constantly show it to us in grade school as some sort of reward. I think this was the source for my general hatred of balloons. Like I'd rather have been doing hundreds of basic multiplication problems or reading really boring stories about "Rosa" who lived in an "apartment" (the longest vocabulary word we had between grades 1 & 3) than watching The fucking Red Balloon.

that's weird. i saw the red balloon only once as a kid and subsequently have it mixed together in my head with vague memories of little girl crying at the zoo 'cause she'd lost her balloon (the fading dot of her balloon so indescribably wrenching, irretrievable) and ads on DC tv for the friends of the national zoo (FONZ). remember liking it a lot, but with all the cross-traffic and intervening years, hard to say. "apartment" is one of the first big words in any language, and always "apartment". french, spanish, english... plus discotheque.

apartment was totally exotic to me at the time - i didn't know anyone who lived in an apartment.

ha, my dad lived in an apartment. just seemed weird.

they also showed Free to Be You and Me a lot - i was a fan.

free to be you and me! had that book/record. associate it with T.A. for tots, for some reason. films i only saw once (in class): born free, kon-tiki, the miracle of life, and that one about the little indian canoe that flowed downriver to sea.

what i saw a billion times was powers of 10, by the eameses, cuz it was on permanent display in the air & space museum. would watch that a billion more times if i had a copy right here.

it might be on ubuweb?

i have one reel (out of 4, i think) of Free to Be You and Me on 16mm

so awesome! you need the rest.

"Little Shop of Horrors" I watched a ton, too...we taped it the month my parents got HBO free.
― Mormons come out of the sky and they stand there (Abbbottt)

^exact same thing in my life; this may explain something.

As a small child it was Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There was a terrific animation called Flight of Dragons that I loved to pieces as well. Also I remember watching this odd australian film involving a talking koala and green wacky bars that made you do weird stuff - I watched that film over and over, and if anyone knows what it was called or anything then please enlighten me.

Goonies, Explorers, Conan The Barbarian, Big Trouble in Little China. Especially the last two I could probably recite any of the dialog.

"Conan! What is best in life?"

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.

conan & big trouble, oh yeah, tons of times. and dreamscape. and nightmare on elm street.

OK this is only because they were always on TV, or seemed to be at least, but I have seen Patrick Dempsey's amazing films "Can't Buy me Love", and "Loverboy" more than any one person should.

Just remembered that at primary school they showed the same film repeatedly as a 'treat' - Danny the Champion of the World.

(Also, ENBB, I have a completely irrational love of Loverboy)

Die Hard, Rocky III

Ghostbusters and all the 1989-1997 continuity Batman films. In the first case I only really *got* the humour as a teenager, and the second is pretty bizarre/wrong with all the innuendo in those films, see: Catwoman in Batman Returns. Also that scene where she starts vandalising her apartment, spray-painting the doll house and flushing the toys down the plughole always stands out for me. So disturbing/sad.

Also Star Wars IV-VI obv.

i felt like i watched The Red Balloon a million times as a kid - because they'd constantly show it to us in grade school as some sort of reward.

it was on TV regularly too (PBS?). in third grade the nuns took our entire school to see The Sound of Music, I guess because it valorized "the sisters"

Popeye - the one with Robin Williams/Shelley Duvall. Watched that one a bunch when I was young.

(Also, ENBB, I have a completely irrational love of Loverboy)

Extra anchovies! I haven't seen it in years but would totally watch it if it came on TV right now.

I have seen Patrick Dempsey's amazing films "Can't Buy me Love", and "Loverboy" more than any one person should.

What about Run and Mobsters?

few animated ones that i couldn't think of earlier- All Dogs go to Heaven and all the 90's Disney animated ones

speaking of

the secret of N.I.M.H.
the rescuers

Also, my brother and I watched Red Dawn many times over

Midnight Madness
Real Genius
Pirates
Remo williams the Adventure Begins
American Anthem
Fandango
The Toy

How did I forget Mary Poppins? Most of my fifth year was spent jumping off low walls with a large black flight simulator umbrella.

'Moonraker' (007) - seemingly shown every Bank Holiday for three years in the mid 80's.

― Les centimètres énigmatiques (snoball), Wednesday, 1 September 2010 20:07 (eight years ago)

And boom ITV just showed it on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend again. Except unlike the mid 80s there were tonnes more commercials in the breaks. Captive audience I guess.

Because VHS tapes had not yet been invented when I was a child, the only movies I watched incessantly were those which were broadcast repeatedly. This did not include It's a Wonderful Life; its vogue came later, too.

The most prominent in my memory was Wizard of Oz, shown once a year, for what must have been at least seven consecutive years when I was about aged five to twelve. I hunted out every monster movie I could - and saw Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and The Mummy, and Lon Chaney's Wolfman whenever they appeared. Usually I had to settle for another showing of Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Other than that, it was catch-as-catch-can, mainly a lot of B movies from the 30s and 40s, some Stooges, Abbot and Costello, Crosby and Hope 'Road' movies, westerns. The stuff Hollywood cranked out by the mile before television was a thing.

Excalibur
Grease
Rocky Horror Show
Phantom of the Paradise
Dr Strangelove
all the fistfuls and god+bad+ugly
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
Zardoz
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Alien
See No Evil Hear no Evil

oh Little Big Man as well. probably watched that 50 times tbf.

when I was a child, the only movies I watched incessantly were those which were broadcast repeatedly

same -- we didn't have a vcr until i was in my early teens. ... The only ones I remember watching whenever they were on were Zardoz and Scavenger Hunt

first vcr I got was a reconditioned 2nd hand one that was a relic and when you pressed eject it would aggressively catapult the vid tape at you. And it would sometimes chew tapes up. When it actually worked it felt like time you shouldn't take for granted.

We got a VCR in I think 1989, taped every film that was on over Xmas, then just watched those forever. So

* Peter No Tail (AKA Pelle Svanslos)
* Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown
* Ghostbusters
* Time Masters (AKA Les Maîtres du temps)

Then later someone gave me these

* The Addams Family
* The Three Amigos

Think I have seen these six films at least 50 times each.

'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' (1971) - another film I watched several times because it was shown often on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

My parents didn't get a VCR until 1990, when I was already 16. So in the 80s any time a Bond movie was on TV I watched it. Also all those airplane disaster movies - my favourite being 'Airport 1975' with Charlton Heston.

These were always on TV, seemed like every weekend

* D A R Y L
* Short Circuit 2
* Live & Let Die
* Flight of The Navigator

When I was 13 I knew the entire script to Save the Last Dance. I remember requesting it as an end of year thing and performing the whole film to my class (they weren’t into it).