Blockbuster Memories

The other night Scotty and I watched The Last Blockbuster on Netflix. It’s a documentary about the last remaining Blockbuster store. Did you know there is still a Blockbuster store out there? Cuz I didn’t. Now, for nostalgic reasons, I need to go to Bend, Oregon and go to Blockbuster. In the documentary, they talk about the smell of Blockbuster… and the click of the video case closing in your hands. And yes!! I remember it all, and I didn’t know I missed it until I saw it on TV. 

We had a Blockbuster right down the street when I was growing up, and we were definitely regulars there. I recall the rush to try and get the hottest new releases before they were out of stock, and how you could ask to see the selection of returns that hadn’t been put back on the shelf yet. Sometimes you’d hit the jackpot, and they’d have a copy of what you were looking for behind the counter, and it would make you feel excited but dirty. Like you had a secret that you had to hide from everyone else in the store. If Blockbuster didn’t have what we wanted, we’d head to Hollywood Video for a second chance.

I remember having to make sure all the videos were rewound before we took them back, and how the inventory slowly switched over to DVDs. I remember when they started renting video games. I fell in love with Cool Boarders and rented it all the time until my parents bought me a copy of Cool Boarders 2 for our PlayStation. I also discovered PaRappa the Rapper through renting - which was the weirdest game, but I got totally addicted. 

One of my favorite movies to rent was The Haunting (the old black and white film - not the awful remake with Owen Wilson). Blockbuster had one copy of The Haunting on VHS, and I was always mildly offended when it wasn’t in stock even when I had no intention of renting it. I was possessive of it - like it was my personal copy that Blockbuster stored for me.

I was always really annoyed whenever the movies got rearranged at Blockbuster (kind of like I do now when the grocery store moves things), and it was incredibly frustrating when a movie had been out for a while but was still considered a “new release” and therefore, had new release pricing. Why should I have to pay new release pricing for a movie that has 40 copies in stock?

There was one time I went to Blockbuster with two of my friends, and there was a shooting right by the store. When we’d gone in, everything had been fine, but when we came out, there were police cars everywhere, and someone was sprawled in the passenger seat of a car with injuries. We rented O Brother Where Art Thou. It wasn’t a great pick for three teenage girls. 

When Scotty and I got married, it was a big thing to get our own Blockbuster card. A true sign of independence! We spent a lot of time at Blockbuster on the weekends going through the DVDs that were for sale 5 for $20. It was always really exciting to find five great movies. Most of the time we’d find three okay movies and end up with two awful ones just to get the $20 deal, but it was a blast even when we ended up with something stupid. We built a huge movie library, which we’ve since gotten rid of.

It’s sad to think that our kids will never know the joy of perusing a video store. Before we had Blockbuster, we rented movies from Top Hat Video and Albertson’s. It’s kind of funny that we can still rent movies at the grocery store - only now it's through a vending machine. I remember when Redbox came out. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and never thought I’d use it. That changed, and we started using Redbox pretty regularly - mostly because our video stores started closing. Now we haven’t used a Redbox in quite a while because we pretty much rely solely on streaming. I confess, I hate putting a DVD in the DVD player so much that I’m willing to pay a couple of dollars more to stream a rental just so I don’t have to load a disc. How’s that for modern-day laziness? Also, there’s the whole perk of not having to leave the house. My, how things have changed! 

I miss the tradition of heading to Blockbuster for the weekend to see what movies we can find, but would I go back to it? Probably not. 

The memories are sweet, though, and I appreciate having something to say “Back in my day…” about.