Well, I'm not in America, I'm in Canada, but we shared the NTSC standard.
Not only did we not have something as good as SCART - we didn't even get separate composite / audio connectors until the early to mid 1990s on our televisions. We had to use the 75-Ohm RF "cable tv" connector.
You might have got the audio/video composite connectors on expensive TV's slightly earlier, but in the average price range it was 75-Ohm connector, or even worse, 75-ohm connector adapter going to the two TV aerial bolts on the back of the TV.
HeHe... so it was that bad then! But with these limitations in mind, it suddenly makes it more clear to me why most C64 and Amiga users in America and Canada had real monitors instead of TV's connected to their computers. In Europe it was quite common to use a TV as display, especially for gaming.
I doubt it, even though they have SCART I have never seen a VHS deck that could output or record in anything other than composite video.
SCART became popular in Europe because of France using it for their online services back in the late 70's and early 80's. There was not enough consumer demand for it in America & without government enforcing it (like France did) it was never going to happen. The last time I was in America the TV's in the hotel were hooked up to a set top box by RF.
I don't remember SCART being that common on TV's in the UK until the late 80's.
Yes it was like this here in Norway as well. But it might be possible that some of the later VHS players made full use of the SCART connector though. Anyway, I can't remember ever seeing one that didn't have seperate video and audio connectors in addition to RF. Before SCART came along, there was a few of them which had some very odd connector types as well.