Flyover Guys
Just a couple middle-aged midwestern fellas who are here to yap about pop culture and sports. Occasionally, we'll fly over some random, forgotten about topics from the past that we hold near and dear to our hearts.
Flyover Guys
Episode 26: Video Rental Store Memories
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Seth and Joel discuss video rental store memories as Joel remembers what it was like working at his local rental store in the early 90s.
Hey everybody! Welcome to the Flyover Guides, a show by two middle-aged Midwestern fellas just trying to figure out what was, what is, and what will be about aspects of American culture from our little pot of soil here in the Heartland. Jump on board with this week's episode. We are dealing with the 80s and video stores. Alright. So, how are you doing? Not bad. Anything happening this week with you?
SPEAKER_00No, just uh my wife goes out of town for a few days going to Seattle for work. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I got a couple videos to rent for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh I don't have any basketball to watch, although I I am watching uh some baseball tonight. Otani's pitching for the first time this season, so I'll tune into that. And I I'm an NBA guy, so Final Four starts on Saturday, but I like to watch NBA late at night.
SPEAKER_02So what's your grade on the whole uh bracket this year, March Madness? What's your thoughts on it?
SPEAKER_00Pretty exciting. Although this is the first time since grade school that I never I didn't even fill out a bracket this year. That's how pathetic.
SPEAKER_02That's disappointing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But um my my brother and I when I was in college, we started a uh NCAA draft where we do like a contest where we draft six players, and there's seven of us, some guys from Florida and Cincinnati, and my brother and I. We've been doing this since 01. So here's the funny thing. Uh, we're on the second generation. We drafted uh Carlos Boozer the second year. Now we're we're drafting the baby boozers. That's how long we got to be.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Yeah. Well, uh it's been pretty good, other than kind of the kind of the typical KU second round exit, which felt like that was coming anyway. I mean, there's been some great games. Obviously, the Duke Connecticut game was kind of a classic. Um, but and I've watched more of it, honestly, this year than I have in a few years.
SPEAKER_00I don't know why I was kind of off of it for a few years, but I think there's a yeah, the team I like is uh I like Illinois. I like watching them play.
SPEAKER_02Brad Underwood, right? Isn't he the coach? Yeah, McPherson king. McPherson guy. Yeah, McPherson. He even shouted out McPherson, I thought, the other day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh he coached at Dodge City. He was talking about driving buses at when he was coaching at Dodge City. Yeah, he's from McPherson and played at K State. Gotta pull for Illinois. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Definitely pulling for Illinois now. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's good. Um yeah, not too much here. Just we're we're uh about to hit April, so everything's speeds up quite a bit. Um good times. Kind of brain dead from school, but that's everything after spring break, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you guys still have the his the junior research history project going strong.
SPEAKER_02That's gonna unfold that's gonna unfold tomorrow night. We'll see if there's any catastrophe or not. Uh we didn't get the jazz band this year, so I made a I made a playlist, which that could be that could should that should be a few per future episode. If you got to choose a couple songs per decade of the 20th century, what are you choosing? So I made a playlist of 20 songs from the 1920s through the through the 1990s, and I had fun trying to create that playlist of you want to keep it upbeat, you don't want anything down and depressing. Um, you can't overload with like the 60s or the 80s music, you gotta be pretty fair and balanced across. And yet you also want to hit the diff different genres of music. So that was tough. I mean, it got really tough once you got to the six. Actually, I'd say even the 50s, it got pretty tough. So but but I've got my playlist of 20 songs, so and yes, that's interesting. Ski Lowe made it with I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller, I Wish I Was a Ball. I I did that is in there, so nice. I had to have a rap, you know, and and there's only so many hip hop songs from the 80s or 90s that you can legitimately put on that you're not gonna get in trouble with. It's a little lame though, but I get it. Um well, okay. We're ready to go back to the 80s. You want to talk about what you got planned here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I wanted to really dive into this video rental store memories, and you had a job working at one. Two jobs, two jobs, so that was like in in retrospect, I that's like my dream job. If I would have gone back, I I was just a lousy lawn mowing kid. I I just mowed lawns but you actually lived the dream and worked in them 1990 to 1993. Yep. Okay. So is you're you know, like a film nerd or yeah, yeah, you know, connoisseur. It is this like when do you think that started? Probably here. Where you yeah, just this whole experience led you to it. It did.
SPEAKER_02It's so I think I started a little early, like at 15, because it was at a place called Video Village. Uh Video Village was in Clifton Square. Um, the lady who owned it was name was Barb, and then they moved over to Douglas and Hillside, but just north. That little building's still there today. Um, and so yeah, it was just north. It was next almost next door to it was a gas station and like a sport burger, uh tiny little restaurant. So it's a little one-story thing that was Video Village, and I think I worked there a couple years. Um I'll save a story of why. Maybe I'll save it for your questions. But then I switched over to Video Unlimited, and Video Unlimited was at Central and Oliver, and that building doesn't exist anymore either today. That that building was on the northeast corner of Central and Oliver, it was right across the street from the tiny little Dillons that was there. And so I had a couple years there too till I graduated high school. So I got four solid years in.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So the video village, that was the one that you went to when you were growing up, like as a family. If you went to so yeah, that was the one that was like your movie store growing up.
SPEAKER_02And I somehow won over this elderly lady's affections, and she said, Whenever you want, come get a job with me. And so I got a job. And I mean, I was doing the books at 16, like at the end of the night, I had to sit and balance and then do the cash drawer because I was the only one there, and then I'd have to take it over to her house so she would make her bank deposit. So yeah, a lot of responsibility for a 16-year-old idiot. Wow. Sit and do the books at night. It was great.
SPEAKER_00So you were the only worker there?
SPEAKER_02Except on Friday or one other Friday and Saturday nights. That's the only time. But otherwise, she would be there during the day, but then she basically kind of was done at about five, and there were four total employees, and it would really just be one person working there uh in the evening. And so I guess I can say that um it was robbed three times, and each of the other employees was a female, and they were each robbed. And it apparently it was about a five foot one, eighty-pound African American guy. I mean, apparently he was tiny, it was the same guy, but he never robbed me. And I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I was already, you know, six foot, six foot one. But after it was robbed the third time, I wouldn't I had to leave that place.
SPEAKER_00Sheesh. Okay, so so here's what I was thinking. Um, I'm gonna ask you a few questions in a format, and then maybe after that, if we have time, we'll do some rapid fire questions to end the podcast. So some of my earliest memories of video my the video rental store that I had in Valley Center was it was on Main Street, and when you walked in, it was just a long, narrow store. Yeah, and they had all the shelvings just attached to the walls and maybe some center, uh, some center shelving. Um, but they had everything separated in genres. So that's kind of what I wanted to do tonight was think about the different genres of movies and kind of tailor questions related to those. So uh you kind of started to talk about this, but um we need to start this off with some energy. So I think I'd like to step into the to the action section first.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So so at your job, when was it busiest? And you kind of mentioned that you didn't have a lot of workers there. So, what exactly did you do when it was these Friday and Saturday nights when there were a couple employees? What what was it like holding down the store?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so just let me give you a I don't know, I'll maybe I'll start with a week. Tuesdays, I remember were the days of new releases. So Tuesdays were shockingly busy because for whatever reason that's when the video companies released you put out a new release. Um, but obviously Friday and Saturday nights were by far the busiest night. Um Sunday was typically pretty slow, especially afternoon, because you were just putting things up from the weekend. Uh, even Mondays, it might have been Mondays, were two for one nights a lot of times, because nobody showed up on Monday. So the way you get in is rent to uh get one free. I mean, when you're when you're there, uh I almost have to separate the experiences because Video Village, if you're by yourself, they had a TV and a VCR, and you were allowed to put in a movie as long as it wasn't a new release and as long as it wasn't rated R. And so I would just sit there and do homework or watch a movie. Uh, it did have TV access because I distinctly remember watching like Wimbledon's. Uh, this is like Boris Becker's Stefan Edberg time period. So I remember just kind of sitting, and those tennis matches lasted, you know, three or four hours. So I'd just sit and watch tennis, or usually it would be like Crocodile Dundee. I'd put on a movie. Yeah, but otherwise, you would check in movies, you would um obviously check out movies. Um, you'd stock candy, arrange, you had to walk around the store and arrange the boxes on your shelf. At Video Village, both video stores, you would have a copy of the movie itself, like the box. And then behind the box, you would actually have the cassette, and at Video Village, it was in a brown box with the name on it. And at Video Unlimited, it was a blue box that said video limited on it with like a red, white, and blue sticker. So you had to arrange the boxes to make sure everything was in order. You had to make sure somebody didn't put oh, what was it like Serpent in the Rainbow, uh, that old horror movie, that they didn't have it in the kids section or move it over to comedy because teenagers would screw up the boxes, so you'd have to go around and fix that. So and then you just sit and talk with people. They'd come in and they'd be, and then you know, every now and then about every tenth person would be like, What's good? What should I watch? What do you think? And or they would give me suggestions. So it was great because it was just so laid back. I mean, it's it's it's got to be one of the easiest jobs.
SPEAKER_00Did you guys have a little like in cap where it was like employee recommendations where you had you know how they do that with bookstores and movie stores?
SPEAKER_02Video Village and and Video Limited were not that progressive, they wouldn't let us do that. I I was thinking about that too, because I'm like, man, that would have been awesome. Um, but honestly, at that age, I probably would have recommended just Woody Allen movies because that's when I was really in my Woody Allen phase. And so I'm like, come see Shadows and Fog. It's or it's a great movie, and when it really wasn't that good of a movie. Um, no, we were not unfortunately that progressive. So I wish so. I I wish that would have done that.
SPEAKER_00Did you guys have a Dropbox? Yeah, I assume you had a little slot, so you had to constantly get those out. Yeah. Did you have like a little database that you entered stuff in, or was it just you know, and I thought about that too.
SPEAKER_02Both jobs I I worked on a computer. Um, both of them were where you typed in a person's last name and their account popped up. Uh so yeah, um nothing nothing was done by hand at either job. So I gotta hand it to both of them for work working via computer at the time.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so my favorite section as a kid was the comedy section. So if we if we scoot on over to the comedy section, do you have any funny anecdotes or stories that you remember from from your job?
SPEAKER_02Um I I had a couple, and I remember at Video Unlimited, comedy was also next door to the adult section. And so I'm gonna go ahead and combine them. And that I distinctly remember. Uh both of them, this is that both of them involved Playboy Wet and Wild. Uh, there's a whole series of Playboy Wet and Wild videos that, you know, you just kind of skanky covers and stuff. And one of my distinct memories is in November of '92, Bill Clinton's winning. And at about 9 o'clock, 9:30, before we closed, but I think we closed at 10, a bunch of guys came in and they were all wearing business suits, and they all looked pissed off. And they all rented, they all rented Playboy Wet n Wilds. Like those kind of movies. And it's just like they were so disgusted and disappointed that Bill Clinton won. And I thought, you know, I'm 17 at the time. I I only kind of know what's going on. And I'm just laughing because this other guy I was working with, I'm like, is it me or are we renting a lot of Playboy Wet and Wilds tonight? So that was one of my favorite memories. Uh, was just seeing these guys coming in really nice suits, and like a couple of them had like raincoats on, like trench coats, and I so I don't know if it was raining in Wichita or not. Um speaking of which, now that I think about it, there is a local Wichita meteorologist. I will not divulge the name, but he would come in once every six months and grab a stack of five adult movies at a time. And it'd be kind of like you want to go, hey, you're so-and-so on TV. I see you all the time. But you just realize that's not the form when they're renting those types of movies to say anything.
SPEAKER_00You should have said, hey, what's the uh forecast? Is it gonna be a little wet and wild?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, all those stupid jokes come to your head. You're just like, oh my gosh. I don't because you're just not used to like this. Is back in the day when a local TV news catcher was like a quasi-celebrity. Oh, yeah. Like, oh look, Luca's here in the store. This is oh, big deal. And then they're going to that section and grabbing a handful of those, and you're just like, Yeah, okay. This is gonna be a very strict, straight-ahead conversation.
SPEAKER_00And so, yeah, that's my regular story. Was that section, was it like sectioned off like behind a curtain, or was it just right next to the comedy? It wasn't, it was next to the comedy. It's just right there.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Wow. We we were sophisticated in the way we arranged the store.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It probably kept uh your your owner, that probably paid some of the bills having that section.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, honestly, it did. Yeah. There are so many funny things that when you said that you wanted to do video rental stores that I've just totally forgot about, and this week is the first time. Like, you had to call people and say, hey, your movie's late. You gotta bring it back. And you know, well, I'm not bringing it back, I'll give it back when I want, or I already brought it back, and then you go on the shelf and you find it, and it's her own home personal video, it's not the actual video, they put the wrong one in there, and so it's just weird to think that, like, yeah, you just have to call people and be like, Hey, this is so-and-so from Video Unlimited. Bring back your bring back our movie. Uh, you have a late fee, or you have to explain to somebody when their account pops up, and they're like, Well, before you rent this movie, you have forty-two dollars in late fees, and you didn't pay you didn't rewind it, so that's an additional 50 cents. You get a 50 cent fee if you don't don't rewind it for us. So it just weird stuff like that. That for people who have no idea what renting a movie is like, there's such a strange subculture of fines and fees that people had to pay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and with emails, just automatic emails, like if you get it from the library, like, hey, you have a you need to renew or you need to bring it back, it's your do your notice. Um, but you had to do all that by hand and to call them, call them up, and you probably had to keep track by hand too of how much that's one of the work they're racking up. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's one of the jobs when your manager said, Hey, call on late late rentals. You're like, crap, I don't want to do that. Because you know you're just gonna talk to people who are your grumpy. Uh yeah. Like, sorry.
SPEAKER_00It's like calling parents the the bad grades for parents. Maybe that's what got me trained for. Please be please be an answering machine. Please be an answering machine on late fees.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know. Hey, I need you to bring back Angel Heart. You know, that sim of porn with Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet. Please bring that back. You know, body of evidence with Madonna and Willem Defoe. Can you bring that Madonna movie back? A lot of people want to check out Body of Evidence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, dude. I did I did Fast. We we you rented Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and we noticed that it was it was a little blurry, you know, and there's a lot of rewinding at this section.
SPEAKER_02You know, I did I sat there and I I started to write a list of what movies I remember were super popular because it's not what you think, it's not it's not the movies, and maybe this speaks to the clientele, but like one of the things I remember about Video Limited is they had to order numbers of copies based on what they think the demand was. So I remember they filled up almost a whole wall of the bodyguard with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, and that movie was always out, and so if people could get a hold of the bodyguard, that was one of the biggest ones, and I and like the dis A Distinguished Gentleman, something like that with Eddie Murphy, that was always out. Um City Slickers was a big one, and then you get movies like Dick Tracy or or Dutch or Boomerang, and so it's not like what you think are the top movies of the time. It's it's just this it's weird to even sit and think. So I just sat and wrote out all these movies that I remember uh from that time period, and I bet you I haven't seen half of them. Um, you know, like Universal Soldier with Jean-Claude Van Damme or Under Siege with what, Steven Segal. Um yeah, it's it's funny to think about um the movies where they had to order a whole bunch extra because they always were out.
SPEAKER_00See, and I remember that was one of the biggest things about uh the small shops. Before uh we got like a blockbuster and Hollywood video in our area, it was always the local stores. And you would go in and you would try to see if you could see if it was in behind the cover. And you're like, gosh dang it, you could see it from across the room, and you're like, it's I don't think it's in, I don't think it's in. You go over there, it's out. So so that would always be like, you know, you go in mind thinking I'm gonna rent the bodyguard, but in case that's not there, what's our backup plan? So you always had to it's like it just you just kept going down the list, like, oh, they don't have that either, so we gotta get this.
SPEAKER_02And you know, I remember one of the little ploys that me and a couple employees did is like if we wanted like the I remember we wanted the fugitive when that came out. Um, and so what you'd do is you'd there was 50 copies of the fugitive, but they were always sold out. So when one came in, you weren't allowed to rent it until the very end of the night. Like you had to give the customers first choice. We would go stick one copy and we'd put it behind Dead Ringers because nobody ever rented Dead Ringers. This is the stupidest movie. And so at the end of the night, you'd go, Hey, Dead Ringers. Oh, hey, here's the fugitive. I'm gonna get a copy of the ring. Oh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was it was kind of like uh if you had a friend there or something, one of us would be designated to go stand by the drop box, and every time we heard the flap hit in a movie come in, we would tell the person, hey, could you check that to see if it's so-and-so? Yeah, what's that movie? And like 10% of the time, maybe if you're lucky, it would come in, the one that you really wanted while you were there. That's right. They would have the stack behind the counter, like, hey, could you please check the stack for this? That's right. It was rarely there.
SPEAKER_02You know, speaking of, here's the one crazy story that I remember it very. Video Unlimited. We were not allowed to put out The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese's movie. You wouldn't put it, they were owners refused. People, if people wanted to rent it, they had to request it, and we kept it behind the counter. Like this was somehow the most you know, hot to get item, dangerous item, which is so weird. But I remember that was America at the time in the early 90s, is uh Last Temptation of Christ. That movie's not going to be put out on display for people. So that was our really kind of weird one, too controversial, apparently.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so kind of the opposite of comedy is uh the horror section. So do you remember like what was the worst part or any nightmare days of working your job? Um what did you dread, what did you dread most about your job?
SPEAKER_02I I think you know that that's the thing about working at a video store, is there's not anything that hard about working there, right? And if you're working with a good group of people, like I gotta really speak more to video unlimited because video village was a very isolated job. You just kind of work by yourself. Uh there was always a fun group of people. Rarely do I remember having anybody bad to work with. I don't know if this is horror. It's it's actually a funny memory. I remember working and then tornado warnings went off, and we had our manager looking outside, going, Boy, that sky looks crazy. And then a cop runs in, and you have to walk through a turnstile, and a cop runs in and he tries to jump the turnstile, yelling, get down. It's across the street. Apparently, it was circling over Dylan's, but it never touched down. But he didn't clear the turnstile and he completely face planted in the ground. And I'm getting ready to laugh, but he's holding his face and he's like, You guys got to get to an interior room. And the only interior room was the kids' section. And so you get about 10 patrons in there with the employees, and I'm sitting there staring at duck tales of the movie, like, oh my god. I'm I can't be hit by a tornado sitting here in the kids section. I mean, that's and honestly, I don't know why because I always had this little phobia of tornadoes when I was growing up. I never felt like scared about that, but I'm just sitting there going, we're all stuck in the kids' room, waiting to see if tornado's gonna hit us because it's an interior room, and I'm sitting here looking at whatever Five will goes West. And yeah, that they're just I don't think there really were anything horrible. And that's what I loved about the video store. I mean, like like I would go work at one if I when I retired, if those things still existed, I would love to work at a video store and hang out and talk to people coming in about movies. That's I loved it. Um so no, no, nothing horror.
SPEAKER_00There's one in Atlanta that I know of um that is still operating, and they have like Blu-rays and 4K and even VHS, and I've never been there, but it's video drome, it's it's down in downtown Atlanta, and that's on my list to do. So one of these nights I gotta go in there and see what they have, and probably wouldn't rent anything, but I think you could also purchase stuff. And um so did you ever tell me this. Did you guys have a bunch of posters and stuff up inside? Yeah, yeah. And how did you how did you get those? Or did you ever get to keep any of those as a worker?
SPEAKER_02They would they had a for sale bin, and I never really wanted to buy them, but they would always roll them up and there would be a bin where they're all rolled up with somebody had sharpie the name on the sides. And they had you could kind of, you know, like movie displays, but again, I don't remember the name. It was a husband and wife owner at Video Unlimited. Uh they would never let us keep the displays or anything like that. Um but yeah, the video posters that those were, I mean the movie posters, those were those were pretty cool, but I just don't ever remember being that interested in them at that age. Yeah for whatever reason. You know, I I wasn't thinking of nostalgia or anything like that with them. Um, I think the most exotic thing was trying to well, one at Video Village, I remember that was still at a point where there were Betamax movies. And so there was every now and then somebody would rent a Betamax movie, and so that was different because those were obviously just smaller than VHS tapes. But at Video Unlimited, this probably should fit under comedy. Renting somebody a VCR was like, oh my gosh. It's like you had to go to the back room and bring out this huge like briefcase where you think you would hold nuclear codes or something. You had to fill out all this paperwork, so it was almost it was so bizarre to check somebody out a VCR uh when people wanted to rent one.
SPEAKER_00My family did that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We did that because VTRs and even TVs for that matter, uh, you know, like any technology when it's first introduced, it's expensive. I remember my dad would buy Apple computers and Macintosh and how expensive those were. But VCRs, we didn't get one until probably 85 or 86, I would guess. And and I remember running uh a VCR with the movie that we got, um, and they came in carrying cases and stuff like that. And but finally we would just buy we just bought one for Christmas and invest in that. And movies themselves cost a lot when they came out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they were like $79.95. Yeah. So nobody, yeah. I mean, you had to be like hardcore into movies to be like, hey, I'm buying the original copy of Backdraft. And you're just like, oh, you got backdraft, you know, Ron Howard. So but I mean, yeah, you had to pay an insane amount of money for a new movie. Yeah, and I feel like people got charged pretty significantly if they damaged a movie as well. I mean, that's what I mean. This whole culture of fines. New movies I think were $2.99 to rent. Older movies were $1.99, and then I think every now and then there would be a 99 cent movie night, like when nobody, like maybe Wednesday night when nobody came in. Um, but if you there would always be one area where you could buy movies, but I swear those same movies just sat there for for years. Last of Mohicans just sat there.
SPEAKER_00The uh video village, since you were a small mom and pop one, did did you guys create like a little newsletter or anything that said like new release titles, or did you send out any flyers or have anything for people to pick up when they walked in? Because there were some stores that would list, they would actually have like a little flyer or something that that showed like new inventory and things like that.
SPEAKER_02I feel like video unlimited had something like that, but I don't think video village was well, that's a great question because I uh I don't want to disrespect Barb's memory because I loved that lady. She gave me my first break in life. Um, but I don't remember her doing anything like that. Yeah. I mean, she there was nothing sophisticated about video village. It was brown boxes and just typed, she would type up the thing and put it on the spine of the video box, and it was about as meat and potatoes as you. I do remember hanging up posters in the windows, like we would put up all the new movies and we'd hang those posters in the windows. Um, the windows that also had bars on them. We had to work around the bars. Um, but we didn't I think they had like managers at Video Unlimited, and I was too young to be a manager. Uh I remember it was heartbreaking as one of the managers, she was probably in her mid-20s. Um, and she was like the coolest lady, she was awesome. I loved her to death. And then I found out that she got fired because she had stolen like hundreds of movies, and I was crushed because I was like, Jamela's gone? What? She's like the coolest lady, and you know, I'm only 17, I don't know any better. But they were like next that we had like three managers. Uh Valencia was one of them, and she was great too, although she was kind of tough and mean. Jason was a guy, but and I think her name was Jamela, and she got fired. I was so crushed because she was just like the uh it was like a 25-year-old lady. And you know, when you're 17, somebody in their mid-20s, they were like cool. And to hear that she got fired because she stole hundreds of movies, that that bummed me out. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let's move let's move to the next section, and this is science fiction, and you kind of I was trying to think what I could ask about that. And you've you've already mentioned that like the VCRs. That was but was there anything else? Did you guys have video? Did you rent anything besides movies? We did not rent a VCR? Yeah, we didn't rent no games.
SPEAKER_02No games. I was thinking about that. It's like, were we at games? But um now at Video Village in the old spot in Clifton Square, she rented Atari games. Uh I do remember her renting Atari games, but she when we moved, when she moved, I don't think there were game rentals. I think it was just videos at that point because people were moving beyond Atari, and I don't think that because I think that was like the mid-80s when I was going in there to Video Village. By the end of the 80s, I think obviously Nintendo's starting to move in on it. I don't think she decided to convert over and try to keep up with it. So um, no, no games that like I said, what was science fiction was seeing Betamax movies and how bizarre Betamax were. Which why didn't Betamax win out? It's like we all move towards compact things, and the beta videos were were better than VHS, but they're so rare. Didn't Harris buy like a Betamax machine? Um, didn't he show you like some sweet Betamax machine?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I even have beta max, I have about 25 Betamax movies. Yeah, I bought a collection off of a guy, but a lot of horror betamax movies, and they're quite valuable now. Yeah. I was I was looking at how much they go for, and I was like, man, Jaws is like 70 bucks. It's like a niche for being like Laser.
SPEAKER_02It just had a small window of techniques.
SPEAKER_00Did you guys rent Laserdiscs? That would be a good one. You know what?
SPEAKER_02No, now that you say that, yeah, we did. That was on the other side of the store. Nobody ever went over there. But now that you say that, oh my gosh, yeah, we did. Um, I don't honestly, I don't remember renting one to anybody, but I do remember there was a small section for laser discs. Holy crap, I totally forgot that until you said that. Um, yeah. I don't again, I don't remember Rebe renting one to some. I might have to.
SPEAKER_00I don't think you could shove that through the drop box if you're gonna through the drop box. I mean slide it under the door.
SPEAKER_02The cool thing about uh Video Unlimited is in the back, it was connected to a gnoless pizza. It was just a takeout gnolis pizza. So people could walk up through the video store or come in through a back door and just pick up their pizza to go. And I think they had like two places where two people could sit there, but I mean so tiny. Yeah, and that's yeah, that would be your stereotypical. I need to get a slice, and that would be my meal. Let's grab a slice of gnoles and then go back to work. And that was over by the laser discs. That's right, in the back. Totally forgotten.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so we we got to go to the last section, which is probably my least favorite, but it could be the coolest part of this is the romance. So, what did you love most about working your job at the rental store? Either place.
SPEAKER_02You didn't ever see that movie Be Kind Rewind, did you? There's a movie called Is that where the It's Jack Black. Jack Black, and they have to like re and then yeah, it's Michel Gondry, the French filmmaker. He made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mine, which is fantastic. And he made this movie. It's like where Jack Black is magnetized, so he ruins all the VHS tapes, and so he and KRS1 start to refilm them. They do like Ghostbusters and Robocop, and it's so cheaply made and awful. But people in the community love it, they think it's hilarious. And the movie ends up becoming about how it, you know, movies are this is something we can do in my pop culture class. Movies are a communal experience. But once you start renting movies, obviously it's kind of like television, you're privatizing it. And that movie, the even the title, Be Kind Rewind, um, it was about the people in this community, and I think it was Brooklyn, might have been Harlem, I'm not for sure. But how they all came together to watch these, and that's that's the thing about video stores, is you did you found these quirky, just bizarre people who would come in and talk to you about movies, and I mean I I was introduced to films I I would have never watched as a 16-year-old, and I don't mean that in a creepy bad way, I just mean like you would have somebody say, Hey, you really got to go see Boys in the Hood, or hey, you gotta check out Morton Scorsese. You ever heard of that guy? You know, I'm 16, I'm like, I don't know, I'll have to ask Bo. Bo knows better than I do, a friend of mine. And so just to because I think my my wheelhouse would have been things, you know, like City Slickers or or um Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. That was a big one at the movie stores, but but not like indecent proposal with Robert Redford and and and to hear of Sneakers, I guess it's another Redford movie. That these were they're like, oh, you gotta check out Sneakers, it's a great movie. It's got River Phoenix and Robert Redford, and and then you watch it, you're like, holy crap, this movie's awesome. Um, and so I love to hear people give their takes on movies, and yeah, and then of course, like a teenager, you become kind of snobby about well, I'm not gonna watch that movie or that movie looks stupid. Um and into where I'm trying to form my own opinion of movies of what are things, and that was the stage where I think my dad and my uncle got me into Woody Allen comedies, and so to see something like Sleeper or Love and Death or Bananas or everything you ever wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask. And then I started to watch his dramas, and I'm like, man, these are actually trying to hit like real deep issues, and um, or for as far as a movie goes. And so I love to have those in encounters with people, and so there is a romance there that just to sit and to be in person and to kind of chit-chat as people are trying to rent a movie, and then you're just kind of hanging out talking to them, and then you know, they come and go, and then you hang out for an hour or two. And um the nice thing about Video Village is you could have movies playing. Video Unlimited wouldn't let you have movies playing, usually, which was kind of a bummer. And they had TVs throughout the store, but they were like really high up, so they would put in a standard like promo video that rew that looped after like at 30 minutes or something, so you got kind of just sick of seeing the promo video, and there would be like trailers of some of the different movies. Um, but yeah, I and again, so I know it sounds cheesy, but that idea of just community, of people who love movies, and and the idea of you go into a movie store and you don't know what you're gonna watch, and that's what I don't like about streaming, is it's smarter than us, so it gives us an algorithm, and so it's gonna lean to things that they think that you would watch. But when you go to a video store, you're gonna choose something you didn't anticipate. That sometimes, not always, but you're gonna just choose that movie, and you're like, I would have never watched this movie, and I'm sitting here watching Death Becomes Her now with Meryl Street, this Robert Zemeckis movie, and you know, obviously seven out of ten times what you end up surprising yourself with, you're like, Well, this movie kind of stinks, but then you'll stumble upon one and you're like, Holy crap, that movie was great. I had no idea. And I like that, and I I like that a lot. Just to be it's unpredictable, and that's more fun, that's more exciting. That's kind of what I think movies are supposed to be is you you meet people and you hear their tastes and you try to, you know, you see if you find a connection, I guess. I guess I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. So yeah, random rando movie. Uh go rent, be kind, rewind. Uh for people it for people I haven't seen, it's early, early Jack Black, but I think it's terrific. It's a fun little movie.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if it's streaming anywhere.
SPEAKER_02I'd have to look at that. Knowing that you wanted to talk about this, I looked it up in last night last night. It is um like I saw it was on Amazon Prime you could rent for like four bucks. Um I don't I don't it's not a movie that's gonna blow you away, but it's just one of those movies that it's you're gonna chuckle at some things and then it actually becomes sweeter than you think by the end of it, which is this idea of all these people coming together in this rundown video store to kind of share community. Yeah. So yeah. Better option than Playboy Wet and Wild. How about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. All right. So I had these rapid fire questions, but we may have kind of touched on these, so you may want to either re-emphasize or maybe uh elaborate some more on some of these, I guess. But um what movie did you recommend most to customers?
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember?
SPEAKER_02I feel like the safe one was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. I'm not saying that's the best one by far at all, but I feel like when people just wanted, hey, I want kind of a cool action movie, and you're like, I don't know if you've seen Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Um I feel like when people wanted to see like an adult like serious movie, it was um oh what was it, Nick Nolte. Prince of Tides. I don't remember who that might have been like him and Barbara Streisand. But there were there's these weird weird movies that I don't know if they've really endured. Um Boomerang, Eddie Murphy. I think there was a lot of Eddie Murphy in the time I was in a video store. Um Vampire in Brooklyn or whatever that was.
SPEAKER_00I mean, obviously a lot of garbage, but um we had a lot of Eddie Murphy, it feels like yeah, early 90s Eddie after like coming to America, it was boomerang and distinguished gentlemen and all that stuff. Yeah. But I liked his 80s stuff better.
SPEAKER_02Uh oh yeah, Delirious would still get rent all the time. And raw. Yeah. Those would still always get rented, those stand-ups.
SPEAKER_00All right. Most popular food or snack that was purchased at the store. Did you guys sell that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and those were all. I mean, it was always just it was real. I mean, it was pretty much just MM's or licorice. There wasn't anything like real really 80s candy. I think it's candy that's endured. I think we had longer licorice too, and that people like to get the long super rope. Super rope, there it is. Yeah, that was a popular one, the super rope. That was it.
SPEAKER_00Um so no video games. No video games. What about were there any cult classics that were like really obscure that people would come in and Tremors with Kevin Bacon.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um that was that was a popular one. Um I know this is crazy. This is more Video Village, but like Stopper My Mom will shoot with Stallone and who was that? Estelle Getty. That and he did one with called Oscar, I think. I remember putting those on, and those were so dumb. But they rented a lot. Uh Stopper My Mom will shoot and Oscar. And then there was another one called Turk 182. And I don't even I don't even remember if I it was I know it was like a firefighter kind of um movie, but that was another popular one. And then I just distinctly I I mentioned earlier, I don't know why, but I distinctly remember people talking about the serpent and the rainbow. It was like a Bill Pullman movie going down to Haiti with Voodoo, and all I know is that it ended with him killing the the bad voodoo guy, driving a nail through the guy's crotch. And that was you're 16 and you watch that, you're like, what did I just watch?
SPEAKER_00But that one was there. So we had a couple, my brothers and I, or some even my friends, or my family, that um a lot of times we would always go in late, and so all the good ones were taken. So you really had kind of slim pickings, uh, and you had to kind of move move out to the to the to the edges of the of the store. And so one night we rented this movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy. Oh my gosh, yeah. The gods must be that's a great call. That that was a cool call. So yeah, we rented that and we watched it, and it would yeah, it we we liked it so much that it became the like anytime somebody came over to our house and like somebody got a new girlfriend or something like that, we would always rent like a couple movies, we'd rent one popular one, and then we would always Rent the gods must be crazy, and we'd always watch that second. That was the that was the second part of the of the night. If if they stayed that long, we were gonna throw that in just to see what they would think. And it became this cult classic in my house where we'd have sleepovers or whatever, and we'd always get you know the the whatever popular movie was out, The Rock and The Gods Must Be Crazy, or something like that. And uh the other one was uh was always Monty Python and The Search for the Holy Grail. We'd got a kick out of that. That was that kind of became popular in my friend circle.
SPEAKER_02Am I imagining it, or wasn't there a gods must be crazy too? Wasn't there a sequel? Yes. I feel like I that's the one that I rented to people. Was the second one?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was when did that come out? That was not the Coke, the Coke bottle was the first one. I think that was in 19 like 80, I think. And then the second one came out maybe mid 80s or early 80s. I I don't quote me on that, but that was the what yeah.
SPEAKER_02I feel like I rented the second one a lot. Um all right, here we go. The Gods Must Be Crazy 2. 89 came out in 89.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Oh, and there's a three and a four. Oh, really? That's called Crazy Safari. And Gods Must Be Crazy 4 is Crazy Hong Kong. I did not know those. I feel like I remember renting Gods Must Be Crazy 2, but three and four, never heard of.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the other ones that we used to rent too when I was a kid. All the Ernest. Ernest Goes to Camp. Goes to Camp. Ernest goes to jail. Ernest goes to jail.
SPEAKER_02That's a good call. Friday the 13th were real common. Um, Friday the 13ths were always really common to rent people. Nightmare on Elm Street. Um, the sequels were were pretty common. Horror was a big thing, and there was a lot of crap horror. Uh, where you where you would, I mean, that was just that was the thing on a Friday night, is kids would come in and rent a horror movie or something, and just have a party and everybody go get scared at the party. Um yeah, th that's so funny. You say gods must be crazy. Now I'm sitting here just racking my brain of from other ones out. You just god it is Cape Fear. Was one. Cape Fear was a pretty popular one.
SPEAKER_00I wish, I really did, I do wish that somebody still had just video stores that just the whole experience of it, like you said, it was it was like you had a a couple buddies over and you went to the video store. That's what we did. That's what we did in middle school, big time. And even into high school, we would we'd either go watch it in the theater if we could drive, since we could drive, or a lot of times we would just rent.
SPEAKER_02You know, vinyls made a big comeback. Why why haven't why haven't DVDs? Is it has it just because it's like Blu-ray now and people get 4K stuff? Because my thing, not VHS, my thing with with DVDs is the extras. You don't get that when you stream stuff, and I loved the extras. Now this was after I rented. We never rented DVDs, they were after uh I'd rented, but that's one of the coolest things when I started to get DVDs is you'd get the deleted scenes, you'd get the alternate endings, you would get interviews, the directors take it. That seems like that should maybe and maybe that still is a thing that where people collect it, but I guess I just maybe I'm not attuned to that how common that is for people to collect those things. Um where I hear all sorts like my daughters collect vinyls. Um so I'm I'm I'm familiar with that, but I'm just not with like the 4K or I want to get into the Criterion Collection stuff. That looks fun. Where you where you get the series of from a filmmaker and how elaborate those are, but I gotta save my pennies, nickels, and dimes for that one, I think.
SPEAKER_00Well, that was all the stuff I had written down to ask you, so yeah, well brings a lot of good memories.
SPEAKER_02It does. Thank you for bringing this up, because you know, the only thing that was scarring about working at video stores was when I had to go outside and I had to change the marquee sign, and you had to get on the suction cup one letter at a time, and to try to put it on there. And that was that was the only scarring job. Everything else about that job was was fantastic. Uh please, some entrepreneur out there, please start up a video store in the Greater Wichita area, and you'll have a loyal employee, uh, if not a if not a patron. So I would totally I would totally be a patron at one of those stores. Yeah, that's great. Except not the whole adult section. Don't need that. I always felt a little slimy putting those videos up. But everything else, it was a blast. Definitely a blast. Um, so my last movie recommendations, let's see. Uh, so what movies could I also have recommended you? The Little Mermaid was huge. Um Total Recall was Schwarzenegger, if you saw Total Recall. Um, for whatever reason, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Uh, Rebecca De Mornay was a big one. Um, Pretty Woman. And is there one other one from that time? Oh, you know, um, who was in this? Was this Martin Short and Kurt Russell? Uh Captain Ron. That was checked out a lot. Those are I just started typing in what are all the movies I remember seeing boxes of and always looking at boxes. And those would have been, those were some that were always, I was just staring at those, like, golly, this movie. So, yeah, thanks for bringing it up. Fun topic. So, way to go back to the early nine. I was gonna say 80s, but it's not the 80s, it was 90 to 93. So, right, and unfortunately, I graduated out of it. So, right on. Well, hey everybody, thanks for listening. And Seth, thanks for bringing this topic up. Um, fun topic to talk about. So, have a great week, and we'll see you at the at the video store, I guess, someday. Yep, thank you. Take care, see ya.