Who here remembers Blockbuster Video I know a lot of ya'll heard about it. For those y'all who have never been inside a blockbuster You go in, they have all your favorite movies, all your favorite video games. They'd had candy and popcorn. For anybody that remembers going in as a kid, they will tell you it was a good experience it just made you feel good. When you hear your mom say, "We are going to Blockbuster!" Your reactions is always like, "Blarrrrrh!!!" Whenever they had a new release, it would cover the entire wall and it was ALWAYS sold out Imagine going to Netflix and typing in a show or movie you want to watch and Netflix is like, "Nah FAM." And some of y'all young bloods don't know nothing about that life But you know, what else was awesome about the whole Blockbuster experience... When you got your own Blockbuster card! Like that's a BIG deal! You're not even supposed to be able to get one until you're 13 But my mom like forged a document and like made a fake passport for me or something and GOT me one before I turned 13 Like THAT was a moment in life My friends would call me after I got my card like, "Adande, let's go play outside." Nah fam, I'm a man. About to go job hunting. I gotta start doing my taxes... Big. Man. Things. I'm out here making money moves. Okay, come holla at me And to make matters even worser... My parent started giving me allowance around this time. There's $20 every two weeks I felt like a millionaire. Like y'all couldn't tell me NOTHING! I'd walk up to Blockbuster like... You like my hair Ohh gee, thanks! I just bought it. Harry Potter. Hunger Games, I want it! I got it!! So once I had my blockbuster card and allowance I would just jump on my bike and drive down the Blockbuster cuz I don't need my mom to drive me no more cuz I'm a MAN now! And then one day, out of the blue random, they added an Anime section It was only like one tiny little corner. Had like 15 movies, but I was shooketh! So, the first Anime I ever rent was Ninja Scroll. All right, take it to the register The lady looks at the movie and looks at me and she goes "Where's your mom?" Uhhh, home. Cuz I'm a man. "Hold on one second." She looks at the computer. Picks up the phone and calls her "Hi, ma'am. Um, I'm Stacy over at Blockbuster in Metro West. Your son is trying to rent a movie that's PG-13 "And he doesn't look 13 to me." So now I'm like, CRAP My mom's gonna think that I'm over here trying to abuse my power and rent adult movies. Then I hear the girl go "Mm-hmm. Mm." "Okaaaay." "That'll be $5.99." Yo, my mom is a G!! So the next weekend comes along. Guess where I'm at, at Friday night. Right back up in that Anime section So I walked over to the same lady from last week. And I hand her Fist of the North Star the movie "I just have to call your mother to get permission to rent this to you." "Yes, ma'am. This is Stacy from Blockbuster in Metro West. Your son is here trying to rent a movie." "It's an Japanimation movie." "O-Okay." "O-Ok-I just have to-I-Let me just read you the ratings really quickly, m'kay." "Um, Nudity." "Adult Situations." "Blood and violence." "Did I mentioned that it contains a nudity?" "Uh... do you want me to rent this movie to your son? Who is here?" "Mm-hm." "Are you sure?" "No, yeah okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Blink once for yes. Blink twice for no." "Okay, no-no problem ma'am. Uh-huh, yeah...uh, sure. Okeydokey." And I'm here like, Mom is the MVP! Me and my mom never even talked about this She just knew what to do! This other time I went into Blockbuster. I go over to the video game section The brand new Starfox 64 just dropped. All of them were sold out except for one! Again, for anybody that's gone to Blockbuster and you've experienced this scenario You know how happy you get when you get the last copy Grab it. Go over to the register. Give it to the guy and he goes "Yo, I've been trying to get my hands on this. You know how hard it is to get your hands on this game?" "I can't even get my hands on it and I work here." "When did this copy even get back in here? I've been waiting for it." So I give him the money. I rent it. Take it home. The graphics were like Blurrrsssshhh Mind-blowing! So I take it back to Blockbuster drop the game off. And about a week later, I'm home I hear the phone ring My mom goes and answers it. Then she walks in the room like "Blockbuster says you still have their game and you need to bring it back." "Uhhhh, no." "I... returned the game like last week." "He said he returned the game last week." "They says you didn't." "Well...... I did." "My son says he returned the game. That means he returned the game." So fast-forward like a month... I think it was? I'm home I hear the phone ring. My mom answers and she runs in the room "Blockbuster says you still have their game. And that I owe them A HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!" Part of me is happy. Part of me scared. For anybody that has a parent or parents from Barbados You know that they swing first and ask questions later. So the fact that my mom's asking questions first I'm very happy about it. "Mom. I returned the game on time. I swears." "He returned a game on time! He wouldn't lie about it!" Click. Blockbuster kept calling. I pick up the phone. They be like "We know you have the game. We're going to send the collection agency after you." And every time they would call I'm sitting here like, am I crazy? Did I imagine taking it back? And I didn't really take it back? Like I was stressing out. And when I get stressed out, I break out and get acne Once I get acne the chance of me becoming a child model is out the window I'm not gonna book any gigs if my face is covered in pimples, okay. Then I start thinking... Hold up Maaaaybe, when I returned it. That clerk swiped it up and took it home and never brought it back. Like two or three months later Blockbuster calls "Ma'am. We just wanted to call to let you know that we found the game." "Where did you find it?" "It doesn't matter where we found it, but we found it." I think that was their way of being like oops... we done goofed So they erased all of our late fees but please believe Every time I rented from Blockbuster from that day on I wouldn't just drop it in the Dropbox. When I'm returning a game I would walk inside with the game and be like, "Hey guys, I'm here." "La! La! La! La! Here! Here! I'm here!! Look!!" A little while after this, Netflix started getting popular. And soon as I heard the premise of Netflix where movies come to you As opposed to you having to go to movies? I knew that was the beginning of the end for Blockbuster. And I don't know if any of y'all know this, but Netflix offers to partner with Blockbuster and Blockbuster was like, "Nah." Then Netflix offered to get bought out by Blockbuster and Blockbuster was like, "Nah." And look what happened But we can actually all learn something from Blockbuster because the world around us is changing real fast Blockbuster was stubborn. Same with cab drivers to Uber drivers. These cab drivers are real stubborn They have a really bad attitude. Even Uber drivers about to be obsolete. Uber is developing driverless drones that we can ride around in as we speak Google it Traditional media print. Y'all don't have to attack YouTube Blockbuster is a great example to teach everybody to not be stubborn and stuck in your ways Even you sitting there watching this video. Because the people around you are gonna change, your relationships are gonna change And if you're not willing to evolve with some of the challenges that get thrown at you. You're gonna be stubborn and close-minded. You might end up just like Blockbuster Moment of silence, pour some off for my dead homies.
My mom was the one who let me watch horror movies when I was a kid. I was that kid renting "Leprechaun" and "Scream". Horror has been my favorite movie genre ever since. Moms are the best.
I worked at Blockbuster 99-00, AMA.
One time I had a spontaneous pneumothorax on a Friday night and my manager whined that I had to go to the hospital.
If Ninja Scroll was rated PG-13, somebody at the rating board fucked up. Extreme violence + rape in the first 15 minutes.
Used to work at a blockbuster. The missing returned games or movie thing would happen a lot. People would owe crazy amount of money in late fees. Typically what would happen is when we empty the drop box we would carry about 20-30 return rentals over to the counter. You would then have to scan them in one by one. Sometimes you would miss one and the video would not be checked in. Then the video would be placed in the wrong spot in the store.