Full-length Screening Cassettes?

[Bekuno]

So I came across this oddity at a weird retro gaming store at my local mall today..

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It was just the box, it did not have the tape inside (instead it came with a normal tape of TLBT III) but the guy offered it for $4 and I'm a HUGE Land Before Time fan and thought it wasn't so bad.

But I'm curious, what exactly are these? I immediately went to ebay hoping to find it's missing tape but no luck. I did find one of the 5th film and the sing along film however, which I thought was cool!

Any movie buffs got info for me? 

[mlp4me]

I've saw other tapes similar to this (I might even have a few, but the VHS hoard is buried in the basement). Not sure what the reasoning is for them aside from being awesome unique promo items.

[dragonfly]

Oh that's neat! Probably like screener books they send out to newspapers and such for review before release. Maybe this was sent to critics to watch and hopefully write a review.

[scarletjul]

Cool! 

Oh that's neat! Probably like screener books they send out to newspapers and such for review before release. Maybe this was sent to critics to watch and hopefully write a review.

I imagine it's something like that.  Or maybe to convince a seller (like Blockbuster) to buy the merchandise for their stores?   It does mention what the product placement looks like and why their customers would be interested in the tapes.

[kaoskat]

That's really cool!

[hathorcat]

What a cool find! Congrats.

As DF says screening copies are exactly what they sound like advance copies sent to everyone from reviewers to buyers. So that reviews or promotional material can be put together prior to actual copies being available to viewers.