Pin It Aside #12 - Movies
I grew up during a time when a Friday evening visit to the local video store preceded a weekend when nothing major was planned. We’d scour the aisles looking for something entertaining - or in my mother’s case, something inadvertently cringe-worthy. She was notoriously bad at picking movies from the back of the box description!
This was even before Blockbuster and the 20 copies of a new release to grab.
Often, to promote new movies, there’d be swag at the checkout. Today, you get merch - stuff you need to pay for. Back in the day, we got freebies.
And if they were pins, they were mine…
Unfortunately, I have just five movie pins in my collection. And they’re all from 1992-1994.
Stop or my mom will shoot was a 1992 cop-buddy-type movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty. She always kind of reminded me of my grandmother and the whole ‘mom getting in the way of her grown child’s job’ has a certain dysfunctional humor to it.
Free Willy came out in 1993 and was a hit with my sister and younger cousin. I think Grandma may have even bought the VHS for them for Christmas - she used to get the Disney movie each year.
Heart and Souls was a 1993 movie with Robert Downey, Jr. I was kind of a fan as a young teen and my mom and I both enjoyed this movie at the time. This was a promo pin the video clerks had been given.
The original Jurassic Park was released in 1993, too. It was a family event and it sparked a whole host of dinosaur animatronic exhibits. I’m actually pretty stoked that I nabbed this pin at the time - who knew it would become a multi-decade franchise?!
Same goes for how popular The Lion King became. Disney released the original animated film in 1994. It was just as Disney had hit their stride in animation again (iykyk).
If you’d like to see the other videos and posts in this series, the archive is here. You can also buy me a coffee at this link.