1981 in home video
Encyclopedia
March
- 22 March - The analogAnalog signalAn analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
format called SelectaVisionSelectaVisionThe Capacitance Electronic Disc was an analog video video disc playback system developed by RCA, in which video and audio could be played back on a TV set using a special needle and high-density groove system similar to phonograph records....
(popularly known as "videodiscVideodiscVideodisc is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access circular disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form...
s") is introduced by RCARCARCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
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June
- 9 June - The parliamentParliament of SwedenThe Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...
of SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
adopts a law to ban the spreading violent video moviesVideo nasty"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
to children under the age of 15, and even hinder, but not ban by law, adults from watching video movies with "brutal and sadist violence". The adult case, however, is seen as a constitutional change and requires the proposal to first stay dormant for at least 9 month. - 10 June - The LaserdiscLaserdiscLaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
format is introduced in JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
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Date unknown
- "LaserdiscLaserdiscLaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
" becomes the common name for the format originally introduced (in 19781978 in home video-March:* March - Movies Unlimited, the first video rental shop in the USA, opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.-December:*December 15 - The laserdisc format is brought to market by Philips/MCA as "DiscoVision". -Movie releases:...
) as "DiscoVision".
Movie releases
The following movies were released on video on the following dates:- 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey (film)2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
- The Absent-Minded ProfessorThe Absent-Minded ProfessorThe Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 black-and-white Walt Disney Productions film based on the short story A Situation of Gravity, by Samuel W. Taylor....
- June 26, 1981 - Airplane!Airplane!Airplane! is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures...
- Alice in WonderlandAlice in Wonderland (1951 film)Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based primarily on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a few additional elements from Through the Looking-Glass. Thirteenth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film was released in New...
- October 15, 1981 - All Quiet on the Western Front
- All That JazzAll That JazzAll That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his...
- BananasBananas (film)Bananas is a 1971 comedy film written by Mickey Rose and Woody Allen, directed by Allen, and starring himself and Louise Lasser. Parts of the plot were based on the book Don Quixote, U.S.A. by Richard P. Powell. It was filmed on location in New York City, Lima , and various locations in Puerto...
- Chitty Chitty Bang BangChitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...
- Darby O'Gill and the Little PeopleDarby O'Gill and the Little PeopleDarby O'Gill and the Little People is a 1959 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery and Jimmy O'Dea, in a tale about a wily Irishman and his battle of wits with leprechauns. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and its screenplay written by...
- October 15, 1981 - Davy Crockett and the River PiratesDavy Crockett and the River PiratesDavy Crockett and the River Pirates is a 1956 live-action Walt Disney adventure film starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. It was shot in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois...
- June 26, 1981 - The Devil and Max DevlinThe Devil and Max DevlinThe Devil and Max Devlin is a Disney motion picture released by Buena Vista Distribution Company, directed by Steven Hilliard Stern and released in early 1981 starring Elliott Gould, Bill Cosby and Susan Anspach. Gould praised this film in interviews as the finest he ever did...
- DumboDumboDumbo is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released on October 23, 1941, by RKO Radio Pictures.The fourth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, Dumbo is based upon the storyline written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl for the prototype of a...
- June 26, 1981 - Fame
- Fiddler on the RoofFiddler on the Roof (film)Fiddler on the Roof is the 1971 film adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical of the same name, with music composed by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905, about Tevye and his Daughters. It was directed by Norman Jewison. The film won three...
- Herbie Rides AgainHerbie Rides AgainHerbie Rides Again is a 1974 comedy film. It is the sequel to The Love Bug, released six years earlier, and the second in a series of movies made by Walt Disney Productions starring an anthropomorphic 1963 Volkswagen racing Beetle named Herbie...
- October 15, 1981 - Kramer vs. KramerKramer vs. KramerKramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American drama film adapted by Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, and directed by Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son...
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the PoohThe Many Adventures of Winnie the PoohThe Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the 22nd full-length animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on March 11, 1977....
- June 26, 1981 - My Fair LadyMy Fair Lady (film)My Fair Lady is a 1964 musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, of the same name, based on the 1938 film adaptation of the original stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The ballroom scene and the ending were taken from the previous film adaptation , rather than from...
- Nine to FiveNine to Five9 to 5 is a 1980 American comedy film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman. The film concerns three working women living out their fantasy of getting even with, and their successful overthrow of, the company's autocratic, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical...
- PollyannaPollyannaPollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same optimistic outlook. The book was such a success, that Porter soon produced a sequel, Pollyanna...
- October 15, 1981 - Stir CrazyStir Crazy (film)Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as down-on-their-luck friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after being framed for a bank robbery; while in prison they befriend other inmates and ultimately escape. In 2000, Total Film magazine voted it the...
- Treasure IslandTreasure Island (1950 film)Treasure Island is a 1950 Disney adventure film, adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. It starred Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins, and Robert Newton as Long John Silver...
- October 15, 1981 - The Watcher in the WoodsThe Watcher in the WoodsThe Watcher in the Woods is a 1980 American-British mystery and horror film from Buena Vista Distribution Company. Based on the 1976 novel by Florence Engel Randall, it is a live action movie that, though predominantly a family oriented work, also contains elements of the mystery, thriller, horror,...