The year was probably 1994 (I don’t know. I’m a bit old. I can’t remember.) when my brother took me to the Mecca of video rental stores – Blockbuster. It was actually amazing we had one near us since we grew up in a very tiny town in Pennsylvania. It was about half an hour from us, but not such a bad drive really. It was located in a strip mall that now has seen better days with most of the stores gone and the parking lot a pothole haven.
If I remember right, I wanted to find a romance and he was probably looking for an action movie or maybe a foreign film. He watched a few foreign films and made me watch them at times. They were pretty good but I wasn’t a fan of reading subtitles back then. I’m better with it now.
Back then we would never have imagined we’d one day be able to download or stream our movies right from our TV. I mean, we didn’t even have cable at our house because the cable company refused to come to us since we were “in the middle of nowhere.” We had four channels brought into our TV by an old-fashioned wire hanger-style antenna on the back porch that Dad had to shift sometimes to get a better signal.
Yes, I am that old. Okay, I’m really not, but we were that poor.
Walking into Blockbuster back then was a bit overwhelming for this sheltered country girl but I loved walking up the rows and looking at all the different movies.
I’m not definite about this but I think the first time I watched the Irish movie Into The West was from a Blockbuster rental. Did you ever see that movie? It’s about two Irish boys who travel with a horse across Ireland after their dad, who is grieving their mother, hits rock bottom and tells them they have to get rid of this horse they found. That’s a very short version of what the movie is about, of course, but it is very good.
I also think it might be where my brother rented The Princess Bride for us to watch for the first time.
The movies weren’t the only thing that was tempting at Blockbuster. They had candy, sodas, and stuffed animals. I’m sure I bought some candy but never the stuffed animals because my mom always said I had enough and my brother said I was too old for such things by then. Little did they know that even as an adult I was buying stuffed animals and still cuddle many of them to this day.
Blockbuster sold all its corporate-owned stores in 2014. It no longer grants franchises to anyone but at one time there were 50 privately-owned stores. As of today, there is only one official Blockbuster store left open in the United States and it is in Bend Oregon, and is a popular tourist attraction, selling more merchandise than video rentals.
Do you remember renting videos at Blockbuster back in the day? What movies were you looking for when you visited?
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For me, it was the smell. An amalgamation of Milk Duds, buttery popcorn, and hard-shell plastic would rush through my nose the moment I opened the glass door. It was the smell of nostalgia long before I was old enough to be nostalgic. It reminded me that movies were comfort, and comfort was home.
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There is nothing like leaving home to visit a Blockbuster (or any video place competing with it) and spending a good deal of time carefully selecting movies for home viewing.
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Those were the days. I used to love going and picking out some movies to watch. It gave me a reason to get out of the house.
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Our oldest son worked at Blockbuster for a while, so we could buy a few of the overstock videos, as long as we didn’t embarrass him while he was working. Lol. Fun memories!
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I thought you saw The Princess Bride first with Julia and Sarah… And Into The West is such a great movie still.
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Oh yes. Every weekend we would go because our kids wanted to watch a video, and we had a video rental store right here in our little hometown, although it wasn’t Blockbusters but called something else I’ve forgotten. Then we discovered Red Box where you could get a video from a dispenser outside of a store. But, I am REALLY old because when I was young, there wasn’t such a thing as cable TV. All channels were received by antenna and where my parents and I lived, we only could get 3 stations. My, how times have changed just in my lifetime! Although when it comes to television entertainment, I’m not sure those changes are for the best.
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We didn’t have a Blockbuster super close to us either but we did have 4 other, smaller video rental stores in town! It got the point where we rented movie so often we ran out of things to rent.
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Oh, my gosh!! I remember renting from Blockbuster. We were in a mail order club, too. We paid a fee and would receive four or five DVDs in the mail. We had to return them to the store before we could get the next bunch. It was so irritating because that’s how we watched series because we didn’t have cable, either. But, before Blockbuster, there was an enterprising couple in our town who leased or bought a closed gas station. They rented out videos and were very successful. They then built their own building and continued for a few years until places like Blockbuster and Family Video put them out of business. It’s funny how Family Video stores are now Dollar General stores in my area!
Thanks for the fun stroll down Memory Lane!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
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I think Blockbuster was already on its way out at least in the city we moved to, 😂I can’t remember renting movies from them. N
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I remember the Blockbuster near where we lived in Copenhagen. Always queues on a Saturday.
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