movies/tv Share your Blockbuster memories

[Dawning Demon 950]

Remember... Blockbuster stores here and there...where you could buy/rent movies and video games, I do and I really do miss them.
 
Share your memories of trips to that nostalgic store here. 
 
For the younger members who don't know what Blockbuster is: Blockbuster was a video rental store franchise which was founded in the 1980s and was usually the common source of movie rentals until they were snuffed out by the internet giants like Netflix and Lovefilm. 
 
Blockbuster went defunct in 2013.
 
I miss renting movies from Blockbuster like "Spirited Away" and the occasional PS2 game, I also used to love the snack section where they sold popcorn and sweets.
 
The Blockbuster store I used to visit has closed now and has been turned into a tacky restaurant.....damn Netflix.

[Megas 27,701]

I only ever got to rent games once(my brother got more chances though), though one of the games I ended up with was Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, which was an awesome game. I forgot what the other one was though

[InfectedPone 1,550]

We still have plenty of dvd rental places here since the streamers like Netflix and friends are so crappy here so my family still regularly rents from there. We've rented so many there's no real big memory that I can point out.

[GeekySonic 1,150]

WHAT? I didn't even know Blockbuster was out of business. I just assumed North Dakota's lack of Blockbuster locations was due to... North Dakota.

 

That really sucks.

 

I can remember my dad taking me there since I was around 3 or 4. It wasn’t a grand experience, but that was a chunk of my life right there.

Edited February 13, 2016 by GeekySonic

[Hovershy 3,814]

Going to Blockbuster was an experience unlike any other. The next generations will never be able to experience it's greatness.

 

In all seriousness though, it was a lot of fun going there to pick up a movie or a game. Now we can just buy everything digitally or rent games through gamefly or whatever, but it's just not the same.

 

However, the world must move forward, we cannot dwell in the past. Blockbuster was great for it's time but all good things must end someday. 

[Stormlight 1,371]

Ahh...I could still remember going to the Blockbuster around my place just to look for a movie or video game to rent. It was a shame to have heard the franchise was going out of business.

 

Even now, I still prefer a hard copy of movies such as with DVD or VHS tapes than digital like Netflix and Hulu.

[Detritus 258]

I miss rental places like this. As far as I know, there's no way to rent games any more other than online subscription services like Gamefly, and those aren't worth it for someone who just wants to rent a game occasionally.

 

Anyway, I remember when Blockbuster had the NES and SNES on display there. One memory I have is playing two-player Donkey Kong Country with some other kid who happened to be there. I guess that was probably 1994 or so.

 

Blockbuster also had this program called "KidPrint" for a while in the early '90s. They would video tape you while they asked you a number of questions like, "What's your home address", "What's your favorite movie", etc. The point of this was to have a record of what you looked like and sounded like in case you ever went missing or got kidnapped.

 

My KidPrint tape is probably still floating around my house somewhere. It obviously would be useless now for it's original purpose, but it would still serve as an entertaining record of what I was like back then.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Detritus

[Denim&Venöm 19,135]

Never went to blockbuster all that often. We just hit up Walmart for the latest releases usually. Most place I lived were typically away from places that held a blockbuster. And where I live now once had a traditional movie and game rental place, beofre it went the way of blockbuster before blockbuster did. A few weeks ago I was going though the VHS collection in my basement and found a tape with a blockbuster rent sticker on it. Guess we won't have to pay those fee's now.

 

The last time I ever went was around Halloween of 2004.   After trick or treating at my dads office, we went and picked up Kung Fu Hustle. Great movie. My brother ended up getting a vhs of the old Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon from the early 90's. We were also gonna get Inuyasha: Swords of an Honorable Ruler, but surprisingly, that was out of stock. 

 

These days it is pretty much Netflix or Amazon Prime for us. Unfortunately those don't have everything, and if you want it, you have to buy it. Which is why I actually still rent physical media from time to time. From my library of all places. 

 

You want to watch a movie for free? Go check it out from your local library: the new movie rental place. 

[Buck Testa 5,505]

For some reason I remember getting my parents to rent the Tarzan video game for the original playstation. Must of played through that thing a couple times before I had to return it. I was pretty young when I went there, it was the 90's and they were everywhere. Then Redbox and netflix started coming into the scene and BlockBuster didn't shift with the times, and it ended up killing them off. I remember my parents didn't really like Blockbuster cause of the way they gouged people who were even a tiny bit late. They didn't really have much competition and they got used to that, so when competition came they just weren't ready for it. Its sad, but it just goes to show that no business is safe if they don't maneuver for the times. 

[cmarston1 5,959]

I remember renting a Jimmy Neutron gamecube game and some other video games, and generally browsing through the store.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

The first movie I remember renting was Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. I enjoyed it so much that I actually bought from the store.

[Comic Sans 401]

* borrowing games. in the one that was near my old house, it had a HUGE wall of ps1 games and oooomg i just loved standing there deciding which game to rent. my mum would usually take them back on their due return date on her way to work and i wouldn't mind, but there was one game i got hooked on and threw a fit over it being returned... and that was um... a bug's life... haha...

 

* (played that again before christmas at a friends house and hated it, then SCREAMED IN FRUSTRATION when i accidentally saved over my game instead of loading it.)

[El Duderino 879]

I remember going to Blockbuster to rent movies with my mom. I have always LOVED movies. There is something magical about it. When I was a kid, going to the store to rent a movie was always a big deal for me. This was before you could stream movies, so I couldn't watch a new movie whenever I wanted. It was almost as exiting as actually going to the cinema.

 

I also remember a few movies that we forgot to return after we rented them. I don't think all of those ended up actually getting returned.

[EpicEnergy 23,220]

There was once a Blockbuster in the small city that I lived near. I remember going to that place with my dad and renting movies. I can't recall what movies I rented there though since it was many years ago.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,672]

The mattress store in my town was once a Blockbuster.  

[TBD 17,255]

We used to have one near our home just 5 minutes away. I remember the specific that my dad always rent horror movies every Friday. And I would go and watch with him. This how I got into horror in the first place. My very first was “Scream” than “Hellraiser” when I was 6 or 7. I remember watching Scream for the first time and actually thought the character “Ghostface” was an actual supernatural killer only to find out it’s just a person with mask. The effects and the execution on this “ghostface” was spot-on, last time I remembered it in a child’s perspective.
 

So with that, it became a little tradition where we would watch different horror movies every Friday and sometime Saturday. The last horror movie we watched together was “The seed of Chucky”, me at age of 13/14.  He stopped watching horror movies but I never know why. Probably because blockbuster was closed and I think he grew out of it. I did continue to watch horror movies without him but kinda stopped because it doesn’t feel the same.

[Splashee 28,564]

Looking at Mario Kart figures around the store 

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,672]

Never ran into those at Blockbuster  

[Tao 7,850]

We never had a Blockbuster in my home town 

[Splashee 28,564]

Rented Tangled on DVD and saw it for the first time, and also rented New Super Mario Bros Wii. Those are the only things I did at Blockbuster.

[Fluttershutter 2,498]

Never been to a blockbuster. We always had off brand video rental stores where I lived.

[Dreambiscuit 9,929]

It was a fun place to go and browse around. Back before I started collecting movies in volume, I liked shopping for movies I’d never seen, and sometimes getting some little tie-in toys from time to time. I prefer a physical store to a strictly online world, and Blockbuster has some fond memories attached to it. If it was still around I’d rent there, definitely!

[Fluttershutter 2,498]

I don't think I my family ever had a blockbuster account. We went to other brand video stores.