Hopefully you guys will get a kick out of this story...

Back in 1994, I got my first job and saved all of my money to build the "ultimate home theater" piece by piece. I was only making $4.25/hr so it took me some time to build my system. I was more into music than movies at the time, so I started with audio equipment. After what seemed like an eternity, I had pieced together a 120w Pro Logic reciever, dual tape deck (which was sooo necessary at the time!) a 5 disc CD changer, and turntable. Once I had my stereo on lock down, I bought a HIFI stereo VCR and added center & surround speakers, you know, so I could experience the "theater" in my bedroom. I must admit, it was pretty cool for a 16 year old kid.

Then, one amazing day, I was brousing Sears and saw a Laserdisc player on clearance for $180! I snatched it up quicker than an Ohio State fan can torch a car!! It was just like the ones I had read about in Crutchfield... a Pioneer CLD-S201!! Having spent my entire paycheck on the player, I was forced to wait a whole week to buy a movie to play on it. Finally, payday came and I hot-footed it over to Suncoast & picked up Terminator 2, special edition!!! I had no idea these big, shiny discs actually had different version of movies on them!

So I made it home, and slid disc one into the tray & hit play... I was in heaven. It sounded soooo awesome!!! When the exoskeleton stomped on that first skull, I jumped out of my seat! THIS is what I had been waiting to experience for so long!!!!

...oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I had yet to get a TV. I was watching a letterbox LD...... ON A 9" TELEVISION!!!! I may have well been watching a modern day iPad! It WAS color, but still had the dials to change channels. I had to run the composite into my VCR so I could hook the coax into the TV for god sakes! It SOUNDED great though.

Well, that was my first experience with Laserdisc. Anyone else have any good stories of their "first time"??

back in the mid-2000's, my very first (functional) LDP i ever owned was a 1990 Pio CLD-1080. i bought like 50+ discs from a used video shop that had all their LD stock like 75% off.
i had like $60 of birthday money, and spent it all on them. i still needed a player, and i found a CLD-1080 at a hock shop for $50, and my grandma bought it for me
after the shop owner fired it up and demonstrated it for us with some western or other (i don't remember what it was) that was the first time i recall ever seeing an LD in action...

That was my first player too, although I bought it in 1992 so it was $380 still. I was making the big hot $5 per hour that all year-one janitors deserve, so I was slightly richer. My system was probably worse than yours. I watched on an Commadore 64 monitor. My roommates and I would chip in to buy the $100 imports of anime discs that motivated me to buy the player in the first place since none of us could afford to buy them alone.

I used to play NES on a Commodore monitor at my friend's house all the time. He still had a functional C64. I remember playing Jumpman off of a cassette tape & thinking it was so wierd, but cool at the same time.