The video shop chain Blockbuster have finally closed and cease trading here in the UK this Sunday. Its a great shame for the 800 staff who work there.
For me it represents the end of the video age. I used to rent all my VHS videos from the local stores in the 1990's and spent many a happy Sunday watching three in a row.
Thanks for the good times Blockbuster.
Did anyone else watch videos?
Was never really into renting, but the video age for me began in 1981, when my mate and I scraped together enough cash to rent a Ferguson Videostar from Radio Rentals. The ability to record and keep tv shows and films was miraculous, in an age when you couldn't rewatch something unless it was repeated. Our only problem was the cost of blank tapes, over 10 pounds for 3 hours.
ReplyDeleteI was a Video film rental fanatic!
ReplyDeleteI can remember turning up early at the local shop to wait for the new releases.
I can recall Mariella Frostrup used to do a late night review show about the new releases and I always watched it.
On the morning of the release of "Stargate" I remember waiting for about two and a half hours for them to put the film out. The staff used to clear a shelf so you knew where the new films were going to be placed and people would huddle around the empty shelf ready to pounce! Sometimes you had to be quick!
I had my dog with me too on that "Stargate" mornung...he nearly drove me nuts wanting to get back to his walkies!
Great memories guys! Buying videos was hugely expensive in the early 80's so renting was inevitable. I loved the battle between VHS, Betamax and V2000 for our attention. Reminds me of internet companies now like Google and Yahoo. VHS won the day. The first video I saw though was a Betamax, Drive In Massacre, which my brother Eugene had rented and played on his Videostar VCR. This was followed by The Haunted House of Horror. This was the early 1980's before certification of video's in the UK, which came in in 1984. These early vid;s are thus known as pre-certs [pre- certification] and came in big boxes. Of all the audio and visual technologies that have come and gone during my 53 years - Super 8, 8 track cartridges, vinyl, cassettes, Laserdiscs and minidiscs, it is video which fascinates me the most because it was so revolutionary, controversial and liberating in a way the internet would be 20 years later. Blockbuster was the last remains of it on the British High Street. You will only find VCR's in charity shops nowadays and they are selling video's 10 for a £1 or even giving them away!
ReplyDeleteUsed to work at a video rental for a summer as a student in the 80's, with free access to everything... We even had a video-a-thon of nine films, back to back! Nowadays still collecting old big boxes of pre-censorship (before 1986, that is) era, love to watch the static-ridden picture of a cult classic, with barely audible soundtrack.
ReplyDelete