I posted a message about this in another forum, but I decided to make a forum about it. Did anyone ever watch old VHS tapes past the credits? If you did, about a minute after the credits, a white or black screen (or with red "clock" numbers as someone said at youtube) appeared and it made a certain noise, like an endless tone from a test pattern, a continuous beeping similar to someone dialing a telephone, or, from what I have heard but not seen, a strange noise. It was commonly a white screen on paramount and fox videos, and I saw a black screen at the end of an old superman cartoon video. Both had the test pattern tone. Does anyone know what causes it to come on after the movie? Some people have said that it might have been there to assure that the movie was really over, but my belief is that the tape reel (inside the video tape) came to it's end and all that is left is white (if you actually eject the video at this point, you can sometimes see the end of the film on the reel inside the video is white instead of black), and I think the beeping sounds come from the video trying to play, yet the film reel has come to an end.

Oh my GOD....I thought I was the only one who knew that the beeping noise existed!!!

Those white screens were horrible! They scared the heck out of me! After all these years, I still haven't discovered the reason for those. I also remember hearing those telephone sounds, but they seemed to be more toward the begining of the videos.

Maybe it did that to wake people up when the movie was over. ;)

Yeah, that white screen traumatized me when I was little. That thing was terrifying.

That's the government tapping into your brain.

But seriously, I remember waking up to those beeping noises and feeling very out of sorts. Imagine watching a nice movie, then the next thing you know, you blink your eyes open to a mysterious, alien music. (That's what aliens consider music, in case you didn't know.)

I think its a testing pattern like how if you've ever seen a prototype that comes from a print shop, it'll have little color panels off in the margin. I think the beeping is a left over calibration tool that comes standard on VHS's but is recorded over by the movie.

Kids these days get to wake up to the DVD menu looping, spoiled brats! In my day you had to wake up to the alien government mind control device!

That's what I thought first...

I dont think I ever did that. However, I had a couple of VHS tapes that wernt THAT old and in the start of it (not the ending of it) you can hear beeping noises that does sound like someone dialing a telephone. My sister and I used to joke that the characters of whatever show or movie was shown decided to order a pizza before going on air. :P

I remember those..... I still see them sometimes


the noise is a test signal
and I wasn't scared of the white and black blank, it just surprised me becuase it came so fast

Yes, I remember that. I mostly remember hearing the sound of a phone that's dialing. I remember watching a few VHS tapes and after waiting a few minutes when the movie was over I would see some extra features.

Yeah, i noticed the beeping sounds at the end of the tape but i don't remember a white/blank screen. The beeps scared me indeed, i thought it was some alien by my window trying to get in or at least some UFO landing outside somewhere...::chills::...did you guys ever get creeped out by the Emergency Broadcast Systems on tv or the radio??...HOLY MOLY!

I remember watching my "The best of Basil Brush" VHS (released in 2001, I bought my copy in 2002) past the credits:
The Universal ident appeared, and then the codes that came on the screen at the beginning reappeared and stayed there untilthe end of the tape was reached.

What do you mean by codes? What did they look like? Try to upload it to youtube if you can.

secretvixen, I almost thought the same thing about the alien and the window when I heard the beeping. I thought it was a "dinner time" signal to monsters. Those emergency alert system beeps scare me too! The first time I heard that tone from another room when they replaced the ebs tone in the mid 90's on tv, I thought there was an alien in my house chasing me, and I ran through the house screaming and I ran into my dad's room and then i found out it was on tv. When I told my dad that I thought it was an alien, he thought it was funny. It wasn't so funny to me, lol.

For the people that heard the telephone beeps at the beggining of tapes,I heard those beeps on my disney movies, but they came on before the commercials and sounded like someone quickly dialing a telephone, lasting only a second. That didn't scare me though.

Yeah, I remember that white screen...and the horrible beep sound. I would never let certain tapes run until the very end because it creeped me out. Back then, I had a theory that they did it just to wake you up if you fell asleep during the movie. XD

But seriously, does anybody know the real reason why they used to do that?

can't remember experiencing that kind of thing before, but what really grinds my crap is that stupid static in the middle of the screen when a vhs tape has been used too much. so glad vcr's having a "tracking" button for that crap

Hey, I'm going to acnowledge this post since it is based off of one a made awhile ago. YES I DO REMEMBER IT!!!!

Now a days there just fuzz.

i can't believe i'm saying this, but tonight i'll try to be brave enought to look through my old vhs tapes for those screens.

i didn't find anything so far on my vhs tapes that are out of my attic, but my child's play movie (the movie with chucky) ended with the credits, and then showed the mgm logo with with little (mgm's) that changed colors scrolling in the background, and then there was (fuzz or static, whatever you call it) untill the tape ended (completely). another weird thing about those mgm tapes is that as soon as you start the movie, the mgm logo is the first thing you see (the same one at the end) instead of a black screen untill the commercials or fbi logos are shown.

That did used to scare me.