Most DVDs have some extra material, such as making-of docs, commentaries, and alternate scenes. Although this was much rarer in the VHS era, it did happen. I remember seeing both “Casablanca” and “It’s a Mad World” had making-of docs; “Mad” had it at the end of tape two, while “Casablanca” bizzarely had it before the movie. Do you remember any other VHS tapes with “extras”?
Disney was doing the forced trailer thing before you could watch the movie LOOOONG before DVD ever was invented.
This is Spinal Tap had the video for “Hell Hole” included. The *Star Wars *1995 tapes had a George Lucas interview. The Sixth Sense had a “Rules and Clues” thing on it where the filmmakers explained the constraints they had to follow.
I own double-cassette versions of “American Beauty” and “Jaws” with bonus features on the second tape (“making of” documentaries, deleted scenes, etc.).
I had a VHS tape of The Matrix with a bunch of making-of featurettes after the movie.
The Lord Peter Wimsey trio starring Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walter had interviews with the cast at the end of the 3rd tape, if I recall correctly.
ETA: I do not recall correctly! Umm, those were home recordings of BBC broadcasts and it was of course the BBC broadcasts that had the damn interviews.
Pulp Fiction on vhs had an edition with deleted scenes.
The World is Not Enough started with the Garbage video of the theme song, with Shirley Manson as a femme fatale robot assassin.
Disney’s Sleeping Beauty on VHS had a “making of” documentary, including an interview with the actress voicing of Aurora, at the end.
Similarly, I have a “green” edition of “Trainspotting” (the orange-based posters were in every student bedroom ever in the 90s) with deleted scenes at the end.
I bought this back in the pre-DVD days. As you can see it simply includes the extras on a separate tape.
Back in the early 90s the only place you could see ‘special editions’ was on the LaserDisc release. I so wanted to see the extended cut of Aliens (with the colony footage and the sentry guns etc.) I asked in a CompuServe forum if someone could make me a VHS copy of their LaserDisc. Thankfully they did!
I also have the original Star Wars trilogy, pre Special Edition, on VHS with about fifteen minutes of documentary footage at the beginning of each tape.
I have those also.
I have Highlander on VHS and there are deleted scenes with commentary at the end. It was pretty cool having that before DVDs made these things possible.
I have a two tape version of A Nightmare on Elm Street that had some extras on the second tape including some deleted scenes that I have never seen anywhere else. This included and extended scene in the basement where Nancy’s mother explains Freddy’s origin and also drops the bomb that all of the main characters had older siblings that were victims of the living Freddy Kruger!