Oh man, do I ever remember Sega Channel!
My family had this service until it was discontinued. I can't remember how long that was, but I don't think I bought or rented more than three games during that time. My SNES started to look pretty lonely.
I remember seeing billboards for it in my city (I live in a small, nowhere city in Canada), and it blew my mind. It was just a close up of Sonic the Hedgehog with the text, "24 hours was the best we could do." Whoa! Games 24 hours a day! They come through your cable?! What witchcraft is this?!
But yeah, certain games seemed to stick around every month, which was cool because I was always ready for more Skitchin'. It also allowed me the chance to play a bunch of games I never would have bothered to rent, but were awesome (note: Awesome Possum was not one of these games).
It's also worth noting that my family didn't even really have a computer until about 1999. And we didn't even know that the mass-popularity of the internet was just around the corner. To be able to temporarily download a game in about a minute seemed so surreal and magical.
Most of all though, I loved the music and sound effects on the interface. They tried so hard to be so awesome. The clip below has a bunch that I remember as well as some that I don't (it's not my video. Just another former Sega Channel user):
