In Toon

As far as television goes, I was barely able to watch cartoons where I grew up in the Philippines.  The signal was always pretty fuzzy and my cousins and I eventually lost our patience and just went outside to play.  I only remember bits and pieces of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig and can't recall watching an entire cartoon show on TV from start to finish.

When my mom left to work in the USA, however, we were able to afford a nice VHS set.  Actually, we had a Betamax player before she left, but I think VHS was more expensive and had more cassettes available.  It also seemed to be a status symbol, as my dad constantly bragged about it.  Or humble bragged.  He would constantly tell people we can't afford to eat dinner because we spend our money on renting VHS tapes.

There were a few VHS rental places popping up around that time.  Some of the shows were just recorded off the TV from the States.  It must have been a relative or someone they know recording if off the VCR and sending the tapes over.  I remember my dad, my brothers and I being fascinated about seeing the American commercials on the tapes.

At the rental places, some of the titles were unfamiliar to us.  (My dad didn't really like Filipino movies, so we would usually get English titles.).  We would ask the workers there was the movie was about, and he or she would tell us about it.  Sometimes they would ask if we wanted to have a glimpse at it.  The would pop in the tape in the machine, fast forward a bit, and let us watch a few minutes.  Then sometimes they would fast forward a bit more and show more.  And then we would let him know if we were interested or not.  I remember at this one place, the tape would pop up over the deck and then the guy would pull the tape out.  It wasn't one of the regular front loading ones.  It seemed really cool at the time, but now I realized, it's probably more inconvenient because you can't stack them or put something on top.  Also, I remember the guy would put the tape in a rewinding machine to rewind them and explained to us that it was better to do it that was so that it puts less stress on the VHS deck.  Also, he was able to rewind the tapes while showing us another movie.

Eventually, we got our own rewinder.  I can't recall if my mom sent it to us via Balikbayan Box or if we just used her money to buy one locally.  I do feel it came from America because it was a cool looking one in the shape of a sports car.  I think it was red.  I remember friends would come over and look at the cool sports car model toy, and I would push a button and it would pop up and impress them.

Interestingly enough, one of the titles my brother and I enjoyed was something that we didn't preview.  It is possible he may have already been familiar with it.  But I remember seeing "Tom & Jerry" and us just kind of deciding to rent it.  I thought it would be about a couple of friends, named Tom and Jerry.  I kinda pictured the scene in "Big" where the two kids were walking on the street arm in arm and singing together.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a cartoon, and my brother and I laughed like crazy and we would watch it over and over.  At some point, my cousins would be over, too, and laughed with us.  We would then look for other tapes and rent them as well.  That was basically the first cartoon we were able to watch from start to finish, and it was not only just one show but a bunch of episodes one after the other.