Here is an interesting piece--this is a flyer announcing a special price to order GODZILLA 1985 on home video. While "flyer" is probably not the correct word to describe this, it's hard to imagine exactly how it was used. It is printed on glossy cardstock, is one-sided, and measures 8 by 5 inches...so it's too big to be packed into regular VHS releases of the day. Back in those days, local newspapers had "Sunday Supplements" that would often contain items like this, so perhaps that's one idea.
You can tell right away that the marketers on this side of the Pacific were attempting a "wacky" approach to sell the film (I mean, it had a Love Theme after all), and in hindsight, it's really too bad that they didn't just let the film be itself...well, the American version of itself. Case in point:
Yikes. At least this is the only place that this synopsis appeared! If you wanted to order the movie, it would set you back $14.99 plus a whopping $4.00 (for the time) shipping, making a grand total of $18.99. Just from what I've seen, I'm going to say that this was a very decent price for an official release in 1986, because the big Hollywood titles were still pretty expensive at that time. And this was an official, SP tape, and not a low-quality bargain bin thing. And, Betamax was still available, too (although this film would be the last Godzilla Beta tape in the U.S.)!
This is definitely a fascinating artifact that I've never run into before--if anybody has any other ideas of how this piece would've been distributed, leave me a comment!
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