Yes! I loved my local video store, not for the movies..but the games!!! Renting it one weekend and praying some jerk didn't delete your save by the next time your mom gave you $3 to rent it again...Good times.
Lived in a very small town, surprisingly packed with video rental stores. My personal favorite was called "Game Over". They had a promo deal where you could rent either a mega drive or a SNES + 2 games + 2 controllers for the entire weekend at 15$. Used to go almost every weekend with my brother and of course that our target game for rental wasnt available, so we had to search the whole catalogue for something else. Feeling of going through all of those movies/games was amazing. Also, horror B movies were the best thing ever, so many rough diamonds and hidden gems.
I used to carry 100 pennies across the alley to rent Final Fantasy 3, only to find my save file overwritten. We had Front Row Video and Mr. Movies. Do I miss it? Not so much, the rate of tech advancement today is worth the lost experiences.
It Waa never about renting videos that was just a small part of it, It was going there, It was walking around finding something cool to rent, seeing movies you've never seen, Games you've never played, The excitement that came with rushing in to see if the new release was in or did you miss out on 1 of the 2 or 3 copies, Getting some movies getting games getting some snacks, it was the fun, of going to the video store.. Something you just cant get from streaming, i feel blessed i got to experience video stores especially the local small ones..
"A lot of people got upset when Blockbuster closed..." ...and a lot of people got upset when they thought you cancelled this Backpedal series. :) Glad to see another episode!
Dude this was great. My local place was Kim's Video. They tried to expand and became Mondo Kim's, Kim's Underground, etc., and they mainly focused on weird and neglected cinema. They were great and I miss them everyday.
My friend's dad owned a video store called Night Hawk Video, and we went there often. I was obsessed with the horror section and spent much of my time mesmerized by the covers. Zombie, The Serpent and the Rainbow and Children of the Corn were a few faves. Night Hawk had a gumball machine, and if you got a white gumball you got a free rental. Pretty cool. I don't think they had an adult section, but I remember a video store that did. It had a sign with a cartoon cat who was smoking. Funny that an adult section had a cartoon to grab your attention. No wonder I always wanted to go in there as a kid.😂
While I didn't have a Night Hawk Video near me (awesome name though, heh) the "gumball machine in the video store" thing unlocked a core memory for me...both at the Blockbuster near where I grew up as a kid, and the Family Video where I lived during HS, lol (the latter also had a "free rental with certain gumball" thing) The adult section always seemed a bit odd to me when I was younger- it had a curved mirror above the sectioned-off room (for employee monitoring, probably) and was always a mystery to me as a kid... then when I saw it at Family Video during HS, I kinda got the jist of it hah
I have very fond memories of going to my local video rental store and checking out NES games I hadn’t played yet. Just the sound of a VHS shaking in its box sounds so great.
Mine had a better name than some of the ones featured in this video. My local rental place was called Videoflicks. I’m turning 36 and I even remember them having games on 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. I believe they were for DOS. What a great memory
Before 'Blockbuster' and 'Hollywood Video' hit the scene, we had smaller chains called 'West Coast Video' and '48 Hours Video' here in eastern Pennsylvania. It was those smaller video stores that helped me discover, and love, animated movies like 'Light Years' from 1987 (actually known as 'Gandahar'), and 'Warriors of the Wind' from 1984 (actually known as 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'). I still retain great memories from those days.
You're totally right about Blockbuster. Once mom&pop video stores disappeared the magic was gone. Most of the weird vids you mentioned were Full Moon Entertainment productions. I loved wierd stuff like that when I was a kid. But Blockbuster only had general mainstream titles. All the fun of exploration into the unknown was gone.
He's not right..Many people had great magical experiences with Blockbusters ..It had its own magic to it...You can't speak universally for other people dude . I'm 52 and enjoyed all kinds of video places.
I was old enough to buy videos and remember doing so at the age of 10 in 2001… there seemed to be only blockbuster and another chain video rental… but I remember going in there and renting one VCR/DVD for about 4 dollars per video a night! And we would always forget to bring it back! So it ended up being 20 dollars for one movie and we didn’t even own it!
I remember the great stores in Philly such as Bella Vista Video, Moonlight Video , South Philly Video etc. I would love to start a little rental shop that also serves great coffee.
My local Video Rental store was named "Video Buzz" With a giant Bumble Bee sign. Loved looking at all the VHS art...And the horror movies would intrigue me and frighten me all at once. The ones i remember the most were "Creepshow" and "Demons", the one i rented the most was "The Making of Thriller". Some of my best and fondest memories were the days where my mom would say, "How about a movie tonight and we'll order in some food" YES!!! So off we went, to the video store, looking front and back for that awesome 80s movie to go with some sweet delivered food. It was a special day, one of many, that i will forever remember from my childhood, set in, The 80s!!! Awesome vid Tig, it brought me back to some very good times.
Oi oi oi some of these were still about in the 2000s! Some of my favourite memories, stepping in to their sticky unwashed -ice cream carpet and the smell of hot popcorn Fresh games and tapes to play on the weekend, woo hoo treat!
I love video stores and miss them. I had a neighborhood video store. We went so m7ch the owner knew our first names and always treated us like family. Love these videos.
My buddy growing up had terrible parents who would let us rent anything as long as we did not bother them. We would rent the horror film with the best cover and enjoy our Friday night. The local store in Arvada would rent to us regardless of rating and full well knowing there was no chance we were 18...or even close to it. Amazing memories and now 25-30 years later...I have a massive collection of nothing but 80s horror (mostly VHS) to remind me of the great times and a passion for those titles that started all those years ago thanks to mom and pop video stores.
I spent far too much time in my local video stores. I was into horror and the video games. Later in the 90's it was my source for POGs! I miss those days. I also always assumed that the adult section had the actual really scary movies. Local video stores had such a personality to them, and it was more personal than blockbuster. Also usually much cheaper. Does anyone else remember having to pay to get a membership to a rental store? Memberships cost money way back when at most places.
I agree there was just something so tangible about going into the store and discovering movies rather than point, click and watch. It became a part of the Friday night weekend. You'd order your pizza and while waiting you find a movie. Later it become part of date night just walking around with my girl friend (now wife) deciding what we'd like to watch.
The horror section stands out most to me when I think back to my local video rental store. It was called Mr Wizard's Video and it was only 2 blocks from my house growing up. I hated when Blockbuster came to town and shut it down.
My local video store was Video Joy in North Hollywood. I can't find any proof that it ever existed when I search the internet. My dad always picked out the worst possible movies. We had a rule that he could only pick one 😂. Definitely remember him renting Faces of Death and The Stuff. Good times. Also - really happy to see a new episode of Backpedal!!!
Oh the memories - LOVING this video! I'll NEVER forget renting Blood Sucking Freaks just based on the fact the video cover had liquid red goo in a squish around packet on the front! Hahaha.
That was so much fun. I grew up with a small Video Express (Xpress?) nearby. By the time I was a teenager it had moved into a much larger, and closer location - my younger brother and I would walk 20-30min (each way) to go rent movies there. It was eventually rebranded as Movie Gallery and was my 2nd job - recruited (to no one’s surprise) and quickly became assistant manager. I miss those days. The activity of hunting through the video store, discovering *new* stores when visiting friends in other parts of the county, and the managing and curating of a video collection. A couple times a year I have the reoccurring dream that I’ve stopped by my old store while visiting my hometown and somehow get recruited to work a shift. Thanks for taking us on that fun journey back.
The local video store and the record store!! Both sorely missed. Remember flicking through albums at the record store, buying an album just because the cover art or logo looked cool?!
Our best local video store was actually an appliance store the owner changed the front part of the store to when movie rentals started to take off in the early eighties. It was a great place because I got to know the stores assistant manager who was always at the front counter. I rented so much he would sell me the new releases at a super cheap price after he kept them for their first month to rent out until they weren't that popular anymore. He also sold me his A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Freddy's Revenge carboard pop-up because he knew I was such a big Elm Street fan. Once Blockbuster opened just around the corner, this place stopped renting movies within a year.
I remember my old local video store had NESs' you could rent when it first came out and we couldn't afford one yet. Later when we finally bought an NES we still went to that funky video store to rent the NES game carriages on Friday's to play all weekend, beat the game and return on Monday morning so we didn't have to buy games. Good times.
I think part of why people are so nostalgic for Blockbuster is because it’s a common experience most of us can relate to, but my nostalgia is all tied up in the local stores. In Watertown, CT, we had Hollywood Home Video (NOT related to the chain), Video Depot, and Video Galaxy. Blockbuster was only in our town towards the very end of its lifespan, and the closest one up until then was in Waterbury. There was also a video rental store between Watertown and Thomaston, but I never went to that one. I miss those days.
Yeah, as I run into people who are younger than me, I start to realize that Blockbuster holds a special place in their heart just as much as the local stores do in mine. I understand that. I just simply yearn for those dingy stores from years past. Thanks for watching!
I've been missing these lets back pedals. In our small town it seemed like everywhere you went someone was renting movie, even several grocery stores had rows of VHS movies to rent. We had a few mom and pop stores but we also had a big one that wasn't a chain called Video Circus. This place went head to head with Blockbuster from the early 90s up till the early 2000's when both stores eventually went under. Circus video was awesome, had the best horror section, had the best movies, it had all the charm of a mom and pop store and wasn't anything like Blockbuster. They even popped their own movie theater style popcorn to sell. I loved this place way better than any blockbuster
You just brought back a wave of good memories. i forgot all about the "integrated" video stores (Pizza/video) (Grocery/Video) (Convenience store/Video)
How I miss these old places. The first one I recall was a heck of a drive called 20th century fox video. They had VHS & Beta. You’d actually take a small tag with the title to the counter. Then there was curtain up. It specialized in nes games. They would actually start reserving games for the weekend on Mondays. After them, there was this super small store at the corner, they didn’t last but a few years tops. Then Video Castle. They decided in 2000 to sell all old videos and go DVD. I had the benefit of catching them on day one of the sale. I bought probably a couple hundred from their horror section. 2 bucks a crack. But of all the places I remember: there was a place called discount video. They had thousands upon thousands. The rarest of the rare titles. They didn’t have actual boxes. Instead small slip covers over the bins. It was the greatest shop for rare titles. I went there toward the end of the stores existence and the owner had been severely scarred, somehow. I feel it was probably related to a robbery. It was such a shame. They moved and closed probably 15 years off now. I waited for years for a liquidation announcement, which never came. Today VHS tapes have increased exponentially in price. I have over 3k from collecting during the close out era. I wouldn’t sell them tho. They’re relics. I still am reminded of those early days when I reflect on my collection.
I may have been born in the late 90s but I did get to experience this wonderful time. (Heck, even my younger brother experienced these good times and he was born in 2003, he remembers too)! 😀😀 I always wanted it to be the weekend because it was my father's day off and he would take me and my twin to rent a movie. I watched way too many action movies with my dad but they are wonderful memories from my childhood. I do miss those good old days quite a lot. 😢😢
Hastings is the store I dearly miss. That and also a local video store that was in a nearby town where I live. It's so sad to see these go. Things were so much more simple back then.
We had a blockbuster, but we also had JJ’s videos. At JJ’s they had a trigger on the floor in the horror section that when stepped on would make a loud scream and a skeleton in the corner would light up! 💀 One of my favorite memories as a kid!
Great video! I worked at one of the first video stores in the Bronx, I was 12 and it was 1982. Our naughty room had no door and i would open the cabinets for them 😂 I remember when the feds came in and took snuff the horror movie with a real killer ending and some under age girls in xxx movies. What great times!!
I recall my local Blockbuster started out with a decent variety of titles, but after a few years, once much of the competition had gone under, they opted to go the route of having dozens of copies of the same new releases instead. It wasn't long before I pined for the smaller places that had a more eclectic mix. Convenience stores and other places often dabbled in video rentals as well. Heck, seeing a poster for Kurosawa's _Ran_ on the wall of a local hardware store was surreal, and not likely something I'll ever see the like of again! I think there's something to be said about taking in media one wouldn't have given a chance otherwise... the sometimes weird selection of obscure titles at small rental stores was one example of that. I do absolutely love the broad availability of media in our modern internet age, but one generally has to make the _choice_ to seek out things outside of the typical fare one consumes. And though the internet makes that easier than ever, often times people will just choose to be pandered to and pursue only a limited spectrum of interesst.
This is a great video. My favorite place was Forbes Video in Northern Virginia. Then I discovered a couple of indian family owned places that had great adult sections. I still have some tapes from the 90s that I cant bear to part with. Good times.
It was the most exciting time in my teenage years (circa 1984), going down to the local mum'n'pop owned store in Australia (before franchises like Video Ezy, Civic Video and eventually the U.S. chain Blockbuster). I think our local one was just named after the suburb (Emerton Video Store, or something like that), and if they didn't have what we were after, we could drive another 5-10mins to the next suburb and go to the slightly bigger Movieland in Mt. Druitt) Your video hit the nail right on the head, in describing the difference between these small stores compared to the franchise chains.
Our place started as half an aisle at the grocery store. The first tape we rented was Ghostbusters, the funniest, scariest, and horniest thing I’d ever seen at that point. I was hooked.
My local video store was called Silver Screen it even had a distinct cleaning smell that I can still smell to this day. Each movie had a round key ring tag hung from the bottom of the shelf if it was in stock and they would look up your name in an index card box and write down the number off the key tag. And that was how far back I remember movie rentals being. They had their horror movie section in a far back room and I loved going in there and looking at all the front covers. I remember when Friday the 13th part 6 came out they had Jason in a coffin displayed in the room and it scared the crap outta me.
Yeh I remember mine clearly here near Glasgow. They were £1 for a night, so I'd get 2 on a Saturday. I loved the smell. We also had alot of 80s films, probably rare as no one had heard of them. Fun times. There was a sense of excitement on the way home, kids will never experience this now, as everything is instant.
In Toledo Ohio we had blockbuster of course but we also had Video connection.Which became movie gallery , then Hollywood video and a family video all in two blocks lol plus all the grocery store had videos to rent it was amazing
Yay! Let's Backpedal is back! I had several local shops in my town. But I can picture one pretty clearly. It was a ground level shop you had to go down a few steps to get to. I can see all the shelves, everything kind of in order. I can smell that old shop smell. And of course, that room in the back behind the curtain (that I also never passed). Thanks for reminiscing with us, Tig!
All of my video store memories are from 1995-2000 (i'm 36) and we did have blockbuster video in my city, but the one that was near my house was just a small local video rental store, those people almost never had what i was looking for so i'd end up settling for something else. If i had a time machine i'd go back to 1995, rent a movie and order dominos pizza on a friday night.
Awww I loved going to the video store on a Saturday night with my dad. My first ever horror rental was Silver Bullet. Those were the days. I did go on to manage a Blockbuster for quite a few years, lol. The smaller ones were more like the old original stores as they bought the small stores out. When I moved to the ‘superstore’ you’re right, it did lose its personability.
My friend and I snuck past the "adults only" curtain once to grab Faces of Death. It was kept separate from the normal videos in my local rental store... it was SHAMED and forced to hide alongside the porn. LOL The employee at the register had no idea that we were renting a restricted vid (OR she just didn't care). We loved that vid in a bizarre sort of way. Maybe just because it was "taboo." Years later I rewatched it... it's so beyond fake it's laughable.
A neighbor owned the local video store. My friends and I were like i hope he doesn't tell our parents what we were renting. 🤣 Its a shame they are gone, streaming just isn't the same.
Back in High School there was a mom and pop video rental place that was in a strip mall next to a bookstore. Would rent movies that were the original and the sequel and marathon them in a night. After that closed we went to one that was part of a local supermarket chain.
God i miss video stores some used to be in conscience stores or attached to a supermarket lol and id go in while my mom was shopping to look at the wrestling vhs
Movie rental stores got started because it originally cost a ton to buy movies for home viewing, like the same amount that theaters paid for public showing. So video rental stores got started by people investing in the videos to make them available for rental. Eventually the studios realized how big the market was for home viewing so they began mass production of videos for sale to the average consumer.
It wasn't just the videos. In our rental store, they also had videogames. Just like with videos, you often didn't get what you came for, but instead picked what was there and looked the most interesting. And sometimes those "Ok, i go with that, i guess.." choices were way better than what you initially came for, discovering a gem. Today you only watch and play what you really want, missing out on those odd discoveries. I miss that, getting out of my comfy bubble.
Great point. My local place didn't have games, but I def remember my younger brother coming home with some game he "didn't want" just to later say it was his favorite!
The weird selection was the best part about local rental places. Where else could I find 80's Jackie Chan movies? And they fueled my anime obsession for years when I didn't have to money to pay the horrifying prices it could go for back in the 90s and early 2000s.
A town near me still has a video store, haven't been, but as of a few months ago on google maps, it's still open, it's likely just DVDs now, but I still wanna go just for the experience. I never had a local video store as a kid, by the time I was a conscious person, we still had VHS tapes in the house, but rental stores only had DVDs, and we only had a hollywood video near us
You're so right my man! I think in order for something to have value one needs to have "skin in the game" or "ante up" which was the driving to the store, looking around, making small talk, kicking down cash or like you said the "stress of wondering if you'd get what you were after. It's too easy now and that's unfortunately taken some value and happiness with it in my opinion. Cheers
Before blockbuster, the big player in my area was Video Update. That cover of ghoulies always gave me second thoughts about using the toilet when I was little. You could also even rent video game consoles. How about that "special interest " section? Lol
My local video store back in the 90s was called Entertainment To Go. One big thing I remember is that they had some kind of deal with the school. When report cards came out as long as you had one A you got a free rental. I also clearly remember that it said (excludes N64 games) probably because they didn't have all that many lol. Looking back it wasn't a bad idea. Give the kid a free rental then when the parents take them to the store to use it they end up renting something too. At one point they had a treasure chest kind of box on the counter and when you'd get a rental you'd get a key to try and open it. Well one time I got the key that opened it. Now at this point I was probably around 10 years old or so. The "prize" was a white t-shirt with a picture of Bambi on it that said Bambi in pink letters. Now I don't know if the guy working (a teenager who was a d***head) was just screwing with me and gave me the winning key since it was such an awful "prize" for a 10 year old boy to get or what. One other thing about the store. They had a gumball machine and if you got a certain color gumball (yellow I think) you got a free rental. One time I took a bunch of yellow gumballs I had gotten from somewhere else into the store and was going to try and act like I got them from the machine but the employee was watching me the whole time I was at the gumball machine so I couldn't do it! lol
Any other small town people just have sections to browse in their local convenience/corner stores? Still great memories of those times. Loved the video!
I agree regarding Blockbuster. We would only go there as a last resort compared to the local ones. BB was so sterile, compared to some of those smelly little converted houses or shacks, lol. But that is where often, you could find those gems that BB wouldn't carry, because of the low rental rates, as they were all about turnaround. One video I found was a un marked video that just said "UFO Abduction" and it has no credits or anything. It was very scary, and well done. It claimed to be an actual video that was found on the floor of a house from a family that had gone missing back in the 70's (maybe early 80's). Not sure if that was true. Actually, when Blair Witch Project came out...they used the exact same format for the plot...just different characters and small differences, basically. I digress, but I wanted to tell you guys that I have met a couple famous people before. One was Joan Fontaine. I asked here if she remembered all her lines from all the movies, and she said only the first one, because of the fear of performance. I have good stories about them. Later!
Sadly there were no local tape rental stores in my neighborhood, other than Blockbuster and Hollywood video. The closest experience I got was the tape rental section at our local mom n pop grocery store. The outdoor sign still lists “video rentals”, even though they long since discontinued video rentals. I have some good memories renting video games too.
yes i remember my local video store where i live and it was small and did not last long and i could walk there from my house and i miss it so much and i miss blockbuster video to so much
I grew up in an extremely small town and all we had for entertainment was a local video store called Double Play. My first rental memories were here. The place went under in the first few years of the new millennia due to the owners not wanting to update their huge stock to DVD and a chain rental store (with nothing but DVDs) moving in just down the street at the same time. Even though the place has not existed for more than 20 years, I still remember the layout, the titles, the atmosphere, and even the smell. I'll never forget you, Double Play.
I remember wanting a movie and my local store didn't have it but the owner told me who rented it and I went to his house and he gave it to me bc he had already watched as long as I returned it on time! Great times
Captain Video is actually in my area and they are still open! One of the photos you used was Ira Belfer the owner of the last Captain Video Store in America. I have a video on my channel of me visiting the store and going through the vhs tapes. Love the content!
I can count the times me and my wife went to BlockBuster on 2 hands. They were twice the price for half the time. We went to those mom & pop places in old shacks and small buildings. We both rented movies in the early 90s but I switched to renting video game while my wife kept renting movies. Puppet Master. loved the first 2 or 3. Had a crush on the brunette in it..Charlie was her stage name then.
oh lord it was a kinda adventure taking a trip thru the horror sections of these 80s early 90s sections of the video store. some of them were so big was kinda creepy
I was not a Blockbuster member until after high school. Before that I was all about Palmer Video which was like a step between a local video store and Blockbuster. They had the saloon doors to the adult movies and a lot of the gory horror that Blockbuster would not carry.
I remember the local video store, before one came to my town we had to drive about 8 miles away which felt more like 100 to my 12 y/o self. This one actually had a membership fee and I remember going to try and rent Police Academy…they had around 20 copies but they were all rented when we got there. Right before we left someone came in to return a copy and I was able to rent it and I was so happy at our success of being able to take the movie home with us.
![[UNCUT] The Loyal Pin ปิ่นภักดิ์ EP.4 (4/4)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d3l5rxl5CVo/mqdefault.jpg)
Let me know YOUR local video store memories - and what I missed.
NES game rentals.
Yes! I loved my local video store, not for the movies..but the games!!! Renting it one weekend and praying some jerk didn't delete your save by the next time your mom gave you $3 to rent it again...Good times.
Lived in a very small town, surprisingly packed with video rental stores. My personal favorite was called "Game Over". They had a promo deal where you could rent either a mega drive or a SNES + 2 games + 2 controllers for the entire weekend at 15$.
Used to go almost every weekend with my brother and of course that our target game for rental wasnt available, so we had to search the whole catalogue for something else. Feeling of going through all of those movies/games was amazing.
Also, horror B movies were the best thing ever, so many rough diamonds and hidden gems.
I used to carry 100 pennies across the alley to rent Final Fantasy 3, only to find my save file overwritten.
We had Front Row Video and Mr. Movies. Do I miss it? Not so much, the rate of tech advancement today is worth the lost experiences.
Where are you from and where were these stores?
Worked at a rental store for 10 years called Popcorn Video in Tulsa. Best job I ever had.
A dead end low paying job is the best job you ever had ? 😂
Thanks to the horror section of my local mom and pop video store when I was a kid... it's how I came across to my favorite movie called "They Live".
John Carpenter is currently working on two sequels, tentatively titled 'They Laugh' and 'They Love'
It Waa never about renting videos that was just a small part of it, It was going there, It was walking around finding something cool to rent, seeing movies you've never seen, Games you've never played, The excitement that came with rushing in to see if the new release was in or did you miss out on 1 of the 2 or 3 copies, Getting some movies getting games getting some snacks, it was the fun, of going to the video store.. Something you just cant get from streaming, i feel blessed i got to experience video stores especially the local small ones..
I remember looking forward to grocery shopping with my parents so we could rent a movie or video game from the grocery store.
Grocery shop?!
Always remember great days of my childhood these rental movie stores are nostalgia in late 80s until end of 90s
VHS Horror movies covers were the absolute best!! I remember I used hang at the video store just to look at them, those were the good old days!!
"A lot of people got upset when Blockbuster closed..." ...and a lot of people got upset when they thought you cancelled this Backpedal series. :) Glad to see another episode!
Thanks man. Fun to be at it again and hear from everyone!
Mom and pop video stores were the best!. my big brother and I were thrilled when we rented suburban commando and Batman (89)
Dude this was great. My local place was Kim's Video. They tried to expand and became Mondo Kim's, Kim's Underground, etc., and they mainly focused on weird and neglected cinema. They were great and I miss them everyday.
Cool story!!! What city ? Im always curious what city everyone had there memories
As amI. Heck,I am curious as to where Attic Dweller had his
My friend's dad owned a video store called Night Hawk Video, and we went there often. I was obsessed with the horror section and spent much of my time mesmerized by the covers. Zombie, The Serpent and the Rainbow and Children of the Corn were a few faves. Night Hawk had a gumball machine, and if you got a white gumball you got a free rental. Pretty cool. I don't think they had an adult section, but I remember a video store that did. It had a sign with a cartoon cat who was smoking. Funny that an adult section had a cartoon to grab your attention. No wonder I always wanted to go in there as a kid.😂
Night hawk Video is by far the coolest sounding video rental store I've ever heard.
@@NerdOutWithMe such a great name
While I didn't have a Night Hawk Video near me (awesome name though, heh) the "gumball machine in the video store" thing unlocked a core memory for me...both at the Blockbuster near where I grew up as a kid, and the Family Video where I lived during HS, lol (the latter also had a "free rental with certain gumball" thing)
The adult section always seemed a bit odd to me when I was younger- it had a curved mirror above the sectioned-off room (for employee monitoring, probably) and was always a mystery to me as a kid... then when I saw it at Family Video during HS, I kinda got the jist of it hah
Backpedal's always been my favorite of your series' :D
Thank you! Glad you enjoy them. They are fun to put together.
I have very fond memories of going to my local video rental store and checking out NES games I hadn’t played yet.
Just the sound of a VHS shaking in its box sounds so great.
Mine had a better name than some of the ones featured in this video. My local rental place was called Videoflicks.
I’m turning 36 and I even remember them having games on 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. I believe they were for DOS. What a great memory
The good old days I miss those days
love backpedal
Before 'Blockbuster' and 'Hollywood Video' hit the scene, we had smaller chains called 'West Coast Video' and '48 Hours Video' here in eastern Pennsylvania. It was those smaller video stores that helped me discover, and love, animated movies like 'Light Years' from 1987 (actually known as 'Gandahar'), and 'Warriors of the Wind' from 1984 (actually known as 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'). I still retain great memories from those days.
You're totally right about Blockbuster. Once mom&pop video stores disappeared the magic was gone. Most of the weird vids you mentioned were Full Moon Entertainment productions. I loved wierd stuff like that when I was a kid. But Blockbuster only had general mainstream titles. All the fun of exploration into the unknown was gone.
He's not right..Many people had great magical experiences with Blockbusters ..It had its own magic to it...You can't speak universally for other people dude . I'm 52 and enjoyed all kinds of video places.
I enjoyed them too until I got older
I was old enough to buy videos and remember doing so at the age of 10 in 2001… there seemed to be only blockbuster and another chain video rental… but I remember going in there and renting one VCR/DVD for about 4 dollars per video a night! And we would always forget to bring it back! So it ended up being 20 dollars for one movie and we didn’t even own it!
You nailed it. Used to love going to Choice Video with my mom when I lived in Middletown. Wasn't huge but it had the perfect 80s ambience to it.
CT, NJ, or PA?
@@jwgreek8606 NJ
Thanks
I remember the great stores in Philly such as Bella Vista Video, Moonlight Video , South Philly Video etc. I would love to start a little rental shop that also serves great coffee.
My local Video Rental store was named "Video Buzz" With a giant Bumble Bee sign. Loved looking at all the VHS art...And the horror movies would intrigue me and frighten me all at once. The ones i remember the most were "Creepshow" and "Demons", the one i rented the most was "The Making of Thriller". Some of my best and fondest memories were the days where my mom would say, "How about a movie tonight and we'll order in some food" YES!!! So off we went, to the video store, looking front and back for that awesome 80s movie to go with some sweet delivered food. It was a special day, one of many, that i will forever remember from my childhood, set in, The 80s!!! Awesome vid Tig, it brought me back to some very good times.
I've wanted the poster for Creepshow ever since seeing the art in my local video store. Creepy but cool design.
@NerdOutWithMe your name is tig ?
Around 20 years ago I found and kept my families 1988 video rental card for Mt. Video in Athol Massachusetts. I miss video stores.
Oi oi oi some of these were still about in the 2000s!
Some of my favourite memories, stepping in to their sticky unwashed -ice cream carpet and the smell of hot popcorn
Fresh games and tapes to play on the weekend, woo hoo treat!
I love video stores and miss them. I had a neighborhood video store. We went so m7ch the owner knew our first names and always treated us like family. Love these videos.
My buddy growing up had terrible parents who would let us rent anything as long as we did not bother them. We would rent the horror film with the best cover and enjoy our Friday night. The local store in Arvada would rent to us regardless of rating and full well knowing there was no chance we were 18...or even close to it. Amazing memories and now 25-30 years later...I have a massive collection of nothing but 80s horror (mostly VHS) to remind me of the great times and a passion for those titles that started all those years ago thanks to mom and pop video stores.
So cool you still have all those films! Used to love the vhs covers so much.
I spent far too much time in my local video stores. I was into horror and the video games. Later in the 90's it was my source for POGs! I miss those days.
I also always assumed that the adult section had the actual really scary movies.
Local video stores had such a personality to them, and it was more personal than blockbuster. Also usually much cheaper.
Does anyone else remember having to pay to get a membership to a rental store? Memberships cost money way back when at most places.
I agree there was just something so tangible about going into the store and discovering movies rather than point, click and watch. It became a part of the Friday night weekend. You'd order your pizza and while waiting you find a movie. Later it become part of date night just walking around with my girl friend (now wife) deciding what we'd like to watch.
Truth! It was the exciting part of a Friday night for many years. And surely missed.
I love those stores but I was a kid
The horror section stands out most to me when I think back to my local video rental store. It was called Mr Wizard's Video and it was only 2 blocks from my house growing up. I hated when Blockbuster came to town and shut it down.
And when Blockbuster would buy out and swallow up small chains!
My local video store was Video Joy in North Hollywood. I can't find any proof that it ever existed when I search the internet. My dad always picked out the worst possible movies. We had a rule that he could only pick one 😂. Definitely remember him renting Faces of Death and The Stuff. Good times. Also - really happy to see a new episode of Backpedal!!!
I would guess that 99% of the people who have seen Faces of Death & The Stuff watched it from a local video rental store. LOL. And thanks Sean!
mine was also in North Hollywood, but it was called Video Sawn. it was on Lankershim near Sherman Way.
@@TAEGUK11 not far at all from mine. Mine was at the Canyon Plaza Shopping Center at Roscoe and Laurel Cyn.
Oh the memories - LOVING this video! I'll NEVER forget renting Blood Sucking Freaks just based on the fact the video cover had liquid red goo in a squish around packet on the front! Hahaha.
I need to watch Blood Sucking Freaks. LOL
Yup it smelt comforting
That was so much fun. I grew up with a small Video Express (Xpress?) nearby. By the time I was a teenager it had moved into a much larger, and closer location - my younger brother and I would walk 20-30min (each way) to go rent movies there. It was eventually rebranded as Movie Gallery and was my 2nd job - recruited (to no one’s surprise) and quickly became assistant manager. I miss those days. The activity of hunting through the video store, discovering *new* stores when visiting friends in other parts of the county, and the managing and curating of a video collection. A couple times a year I have the reoccurring dream that I’ve stopped by my old store while visiting my hometown and somehow get recruited to work a shift. Thanks for taking us on that fun journey back.
Thanks for watching!
The local video store and the record store!! Both sorely missed. Remember flicking through albums at the record store, buying an album just because the cover art or logo looked cool?!
Video Paradise was our local go-to!
Our best local video store was actually an appliance store the owner changed the front part of the store to when movie rentals started to take off in the early eighties. It was a great place because I got to know the stores assistant manager who was always at the front counter. I rented so much he would sell me the new releases at a super cheap price after he kept them for their first month to rent out until they weren't that popular anymore. He also sold me his A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Freddy's Revenge carboard pop-up because he knew I was such a big Elm Street fan. Once Blockbuster opened just around the corner, this place stopped renting movies within a year.
I remember my old local video store had NESs' you could rent when it first came out and we couldn't afford one yet. Later when we finally bought an NES we still went to that funky video store to rent the NES game carriages on Friday's to play all weekend, beat the game and return on Monday morning so we didn't have to buy games. Good times.
Truth! I miss those local video stores as well. I spent so many friday nights hanging out in the horror section.
I think part of why people are so nostalgic for Blockbuster is because it’s a common experience most of us can relate to, but my nostalgia is all tied up in the local stores. In Watertown, CT, we had Hollywood Home Video (NOT related to the chain), Video Depot, and Video Galaxy. Blockbuster was only in our town towards the very end of its lifespan, and the closest one up until then was in Waterbury. There was also a video rental store between Watertown and Thomaston, but I never went to that one. I miss those days.
Yeah, as I run into people who are younger than me, I start to realize that Blockbuster holds a special place in their heart just as much as the local stores do in mine. I understand that. I just simply yearn for those dingy stores from years past. Thanks for watching!
I've been missing these lets back pedals. In our small town it seemed like everywhere you went someone was renting movie, even several grocery stores had rows of VHS movies to rent. We had a few mom and pop stores but we also had a big one that wasn't a chain called Video Circus. This place went head to head with Blockbuster from the early 90s up till the early 2000's when both stores eventually went under. Circus video was awesome, had the best horror section, had the best movies, it had all the charm of a mom and pop store and wasn't anything like Blockbuster. They even popped their own movie theater style popcorn to sell. I loved this place way better than any blockbuster
You just brought back a wave of good memories. i forgot all about the "integrated" video stores (Pizza/video) (Grocery/Video) (Convenience store/Video)
Family Video did that in their final years
You truly captured the essence of the local Video store thanks 🥰
Glad you enjoyed it!
How I miss these old places. The first one I recall was a heck of a drive called 20th century fox video. They had VHS & Beta. You’d actually take a small tag with the title to the counter. Then there was curtain up. It specialized in nes games. They would actually start reserving games for the weekend on Mondays. After them, there was this super small store at the corner, they didn’t last but a few years tops. Then Video Castle. They decided in 2000 to sell all old videos and go DVD. I had the benefit of catching them on day one of the sale. I bought probably a couple hundred from their horror section. 2 bucks a crack. But of all the places I remember: there was a place called discount video. They had thousands upon thousands. The rarest of the rare titles. They didn’t have actual boxes. Instead small slip covers over the bins. It was the greatest shop for rare titles. I went there toward the end of the stores existence and the owner had been severely scarred, somehow. I feel it was probably related to a robbery. It was such a shame. They moved and closed probably 15 years off now.
I waited for years for a liquidation announcement, which never came. Today VHS tapes have increased exponentially in price. I have over 3k from collecting during the close out era. I wouldn’t sell them tho. They’re relics. I still am reminded of those early days when I reflect on my collection.
I may have been born in the late 90s but I did get to experience this wonderful time. (Heck, even my younger brother experienced these good times and he was born in 2003, he remembers too)! 😀😀 I always wanted it to be the weekend because it was my father's day off and he would take me and my twin to rent a movie. I watched way too many action movies with my dad but they are wonderful memories from my childhood. I do miss those good old days quite a lot. 😢😢
Hastings is the store I dearly miss. That and also a local video store that was in a nearby town where I live. It's so sad to see these go. Things were so much more simple back then.
We had a blockbuster, but we also had JJ’s videos. At JJ’s they had a trigger on the floor in the horror section that when stepped on would make a loud scream and a skeleton in the corner would light up! 💀 One of my favorite memories as a kid!
All through the 80’s I rented rentals at my local supermarket. Always found something good to watch.
Great video! I worked at one of the first video stores in the Bronx, I was 12 and it was 1982. Our naughty room had no door and i would open the cabinets for them 😂
I remember when the feds came in and took snuff the horror movie with a real killer ending and some under age girls in xxx movies.
What great times!!
I recall my local Blockbuster started out with a decent variety of titles, but after a few years, once much of the competition had gone under, they opted to go the route of having dozens of copies of the same new releases instead. It wasn't long before I pined for the smaller places that had a more eclectic mix. Convenience stores and other places often dabbled in video rentals as well. Heck, seeing a poster for Kurosawa's _Ran_ on the wall of a local hardware store was surreal, and not likely something I'll ever see the like of again!
I think there's something to be said about taking in media one wouldn't have given a chance otherwise... the sometimes weird selection of obscure titles at small rental stores was one example of that. I do absolutely love the broad availability of media in our modern internet age, but one generally has to make the _choice_ to seek out things outside of the typical fare one consumes. And though the internet makes that easier than ever, often times people will just choose to be pandered to and pursue only a limited spectrum of interesst.
This is a great video. My favorite place was Forbes Video in Northern Virginia. Then I discovered a couple of indian family owned places that had great adult sections.
I still have some tapes from the 90s that I cant bear to part with. Good times.
It was the most exciting time in my teenage years (circa 1984), going down to the local mum'n'pop owned store in Australia (before franchises like Video Ezy, Civic Video and eventually the U.S. chain Blockbuster).
I think our local one was just named after the suburb (Emerton Video Store, or something like that), and if they didn't have what we were after, we could drive another 5-10mins to the next suburb and go to the slightly bigger Movieland in Mt. Druitt)
Your video hit the nail right on the head, in describing the difference between these small stores compared to the franchise chains.
Our place started as half an aisle at the grocery store. The first tape we rented was Ghostbusters, the funniest, scariest, and horniest thing I’d ever seen at that point. I was hooked.
Forgot about those rental places in the grocery store!
Indeed, my father and I would rent movies in Albertson's
My local video store was called Silver Screen it even had a distinct cleaning smell that I can still smell to this day. Each movie had a round key ring tag hung from the bottom of the shelf if it was in stock and they would look up your name in an index card box and write down the number off the key tag. And that was how far back I remember movie rentals being. They had their horror movie section in a far back room and I loved going in there and looking at all the front covers. I remember when Friday the 13th part 6 came out they had Jason in a coffin displayed in the room and it scared the crap outta me.
HA! Amazing memories. The horror section was always an adventure. The front covers were like creepy works of art. Thanks for watching!
Yeh I remember mine clearly here near Glasgow. They were £1 for a night, so I'd get 2 on a Saturday. I loved the smell. We also had alot of 80s films, probably rare as no one had heard of them. Fun times. There was a sense of excitement on the way home, kids will never experience this now, as everything is instant.
In Toledo Ohio we had blockbuster of course but we also had Video connection.Which became movie gallery , then Hollywood video and a family video all in two blocks lol plus all the grocery store had videos to rent it was amazing
Rental stores have a special place in my heart forever, even though blockbuster was kinda expensive In it’s later days.
Yeah, I honestly miss them all. Made Friday nights a fun adventure.
Yay! Let's Backpedal is back!
I had several local shops in my town. But I can picture one pretty clearly. It was a ground level shop you had to go down a few steps to get to. I can see all the shelves, everything kind of in order. I can smell that old shop smell. And of course, that room in the back behind the curtain (that I also never passed).
Thanks for reminiscing with us, Tig!
The smell always lingers in the mind. LOL
I remember growing up in New Zealand 1981,videos were rented from electronic Stores.
All of my video store memories are from 1995-2000 (i'm 36) and we did have blockbuster video in my city, but the one that was near my house was just a small local video rental store, those people almost never had what i was looking for so i'd end up settling for something else. If i had a time machine i'd go back to 1995, rent a movie and order dominos pizza on a friday night.
We had West Coast Video in my neighborhood. Great memories.
This was awesome brother! More of this please! Keep up the killer work!!!!
Thank you. And thanks for watching!
Awww I loved going to the video store on a Saturday night with my dad. My first ever horror rental was Silver Bullet. Those were the days.
I did go on to manage a Blockbuster for quite a few years, lol. The smaller ones were more like the old original stores as they bought the small stores out. When I moved to the ‘superstore’ you’re right, it did lose its personability.
That's pretty awesome that you worked at a Blockbuster, esp early on. So you sort of got a taste of how it was from both sides.
My friend and I snuck past the "adults only" curtain once to grab Faces of Death. It was kept separate from the normal videos in my local rental store... it was SHAMED and forced to hide alongside the porn. LOL The employee at the register had no idea that we were renting a restricted vid (OR she just didn't care). We loved that vid in a bizarre sort of way. Maybe just because it was "taboo." Years later I rewatched it... it's so beyond fake it's laughable.
A neighbor owned the local video store. My friends and I were like i hope he doesn't tell our parents what we were renting. 🤣 Its a shame they are gone, streaming just isn't the same.
No it isn't
Back in High School there was a mom and pop video rental place that was in a strip mall next to a bookstore. Would rent movies that were the original and the sequel and marathon them in a night. After that closed we went to one that was part of a local supermarket chain.
God i miss video stores some used to be in conscience stores or attached to a supermarket lol and id go in while my mom was shopping to look at the wrestling vhs
Movie rental stores got started because it originally cost a ton to buy movies for home viewing, like the same amount that theaters paid for public showing. So video rental stores got started by people investing in the videos to make them available for rental. Eventually the studios realized how big the market was for home viewing so they began mass production of videos for sale to the average consumer.
This video brought back so many happy memories! The local video shop seemed like a magical place growing up.
Great vid! 👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm from Australia and it was the same over here. Your so spot on everything you said. Great video.
Thanks for watching!
It wasn't just the videos. In our rental store, they also had videogames. Just like with videos, you often didn't get what you came for, but instead picked what was there and looked the most interesting. And sometimes those "Ok, i go with that, i guess.." choices were way better than what you initially came for, discovering a gem. Today you only watch and play what you really want, missing out on those odd discoveries. I miss that, getting out of my comfy bubble.
Great point. My local place didn't have games, but I def remember my younger brother coming home with some game he "didn't want" just to later say it was his favorite!
The weird selection was the best part about local rental places. Where else could I find 80's Jackie Chan movies? And they fueled my anime obsession for years when I didn't have to money to pay the horrifying prices it could go for back in the 90s and early 2000s.
Ya know, I never even thought about that. The fact that it helped people see anime they could never get back in the day. Very cool.
My local place 'Major Video' was taken over by Blockbuster. I remember its green vhs cases well.
A town near me still has a video store, haven't been, but as of a few months ago on google maps, it's still open, it's likely just DVDs now, but I still wanna go just for the experience. I never had a local video store as a kid, by the time I was a conscious person, we still had VHS tapes in the house, but rental stores only had DVDs, and we only had a hollywood video near us
My local video rental store was called Videoplace. It also rented NES games and such. Good times.
Awesome
You're so right my man! I think in order for something to have value one needs to have "skin in the game" or "ante up" which was the driving to the store, looking around, making small talk, kicking down cash or like you said the "stress of wondering if you'd get what you were after. It's too easy now and that's unfortunately taken some value and happiness with it in my opinion. Cheers
I loved the Full Moon productions films.....Puppetmaster was such a good series, for a while. Subspecies was a great one too. Awesome vampires.
Video Dispatch in Dunedin, New Zealand. Loved going there and getting Monty Python.
Before blockbuster, the big player in my area was Video Update. That cover of ghoulies always gave me second thoughts about using the toilet when I was little. You could also even rent video game consoles. How about that "special interest " section? Lol
My local video store back in the 90s was called Entertainment To Go. One big thing I remember is that they had some kind of deal with the school. When report cards came out as long as you had one A you got a free rental. I also clearly remember that it said (excludes N64 games) probably because they didn't have all that many lol. Looking back it wasn't a bad idea. Give the kid a free rental then when the parents take them to the store to use it they end up renting something too. At one point they had a treasure chest kind of box on the counter and when you'd get a rental you'd get a key to try and open it. Well one time I got the key that opened it. Now at this point I was probably around 10 years old or so. The "prize" was a white t-shirt with a picture of Bambi on it that said Bambi in pink letters. Now I don't know if the guy working (a teenager who was a d***head) was just screwing with me and gave me the winning key since it was such an awful "prize" for a 10 year old boy to get or what. One other thing about the store. They had a gumball machine and if you got a certain color gumball (yellow I think) you got a free rental. One time I took a bunch of yellow gumballs I had gotten from somewhere else into the store and was going to try and act like I got them from the machine but the employee was watching me the whole time I was at the gumball machine so I couldn't do it! lol
I am also a 90s kid in an 80s world
Where are you from?
Any other small town people just have sections to browse in their local convenience/corner stores? Still great memories of those times. Loved the video!
The dig smoking cifs! What a sight! Lol
Cigs
Top of the hill video in oak harbor Washington was the spot to go on Friday nights
I sorely miss the old video stores! Worked at a West Coast Video through college. Hoping (like vinyl) there is a resurgence
Good times indeed
I agree regarding Blockbuster. We would only go there as a last resort compared to the local ones. BB was so sterile, compared to some of those smelly little converted houses or shacks, lol. But that is where often, you could find those gems that BB wouldn't carry, because of the low rental rates, as they were all about turnaround. One video I found was a un marked video that just said "UFO Abduction" and it has no credits or anything. It was very scary, and well done. It claimed to be an actual video that was found on the floor of a house from a family that had gone missing back in the 70's (maybe early 80's). Not sure if that was true. Actually, when Blair Witch Project came out...they used the exact same format for the plot...just different characters and small differences, basically. I digress, but I wanted to tell you guys that I have met a couple famous people before. One was Joan Fontaine. I asked here if she remembered all her lines from all the movies, and she said only the first one, because of the fear of performance. I have good stories about them. Later!
Sadly there were no local tape rental stores in my neighborhood, other than Blockbuster and Hollywood video. The closest experience I got was the tape rental section at our local mom n pop grocery store. The outdoor sign still lists “video rentals”, even though they long since discontinued video rentals. I have some good memories renting video games too.
Good times. Team Blockbuster 😄
I still have my old video rental store membership card!
yes i remember my local video store where i live and it was small and did not last long and i could walk there from my house and i miss it so much and i miss blockbuster video to so much
It would be cool if someone brought back a retro style video store of some kind. Though, I guess it wouldn't make very much money.
@@NerdOutWithMe yea it would be cool but yea it probally wouldn't last long at all
Love, love , this episode and definitely love backpedal. Thanks Tig for taking the time to do this kind of videos that we love so much.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I grew up in an extremely small town and all we had for entertainment was a local video store called Double Play. My first rental memories were here. The place went under in the first few years of the new millennia due to the owners not wanting to update their huge stock to DVD and a chain rental store (with nothing but DVDs) moving in just down the street at the same time. Even though the place has not existed for more than 20 years, I still remember the layout, the titles, the atmosphere, and even the smell. I'll never forget you, Double Play.
I remember wanting a movie and my local store didn't have it but the owner told me who rented it and I went to his house and he gave it to me bc he had already watched as long as I returned it on time! Great times
That's pretty awesome!
Captain Video is actually in my area and they are still open! One of the photos you used was Ira Belfer the owner of the last Captain Video Store in America. I have a video on my channel of me visiting the store and going through the vhs tapes. Love the content!
Oh cool! Gonna pop over and check out the video.
4:08 House, one of my favourite horrors to watch as a kid 😁
I can count the times me and my wife went to BlockBuster on 2 hands. They were twice the price for half the time. We went to those mom & pop places in old shacks and small buildings. We both rented movies in the early 90s but I switched to renting video game while my wife kept renting movies.
Puppet Master. loved the first 2 or 3. Had a crush on the brunette in it..Charlie was her stage name then.
oh lord it was a kinda adventure taking a trip thru the horror sections of these 80s early 90s sections of the video store. some of them were so big was kinda creepy
Those vhs horror covers were always up front too. Creepy!
I was not a Blockbuster member until after high school. Before that I was all about Palmer Video which was like a step between a local video store and Blockbuster. They had the saloon doors to the adult movies and a lot of the gory horror that Blockbuster would not carry.
I always went to local video rental
Our two old ones were called The video station and More than video👍✌️
I remember the local video store, before one came to my town we had to drive about 8 miles away which felt more like 100 to my 12 y/o self. This one actually had a membership fee and I remember going to try and rent Police Academy…they had around 20 copies but they were all rented when we got there. Right before we left someone came in to return a copy and I was able to rent it and I was so happy at our success of being able to take the movie home with us.
Great memories, man.
The good times.
I once snuck into the adult section, and realized it was NOT what I thought it would be.
Good times!