Video Rental Memories

Remembering back to the days of video rentals, when it was actually videos.
On
October 18, 2009
I remember going to two main video rentals when I was younger - one called Global Video and another inside a hardware store. Back then, tapes cost around £2.50 rental per night!



This was back in the days when rentals would be lined wall to wall with an earth shattering amount of tapes, sometimes over 2 or 3 thousand! Half of the excitement of renting a video came from watching the 20-minute barrage of trailers at the beginning, with trailers like MAC AND ME and POUND PUPPIES would be shown before THEY LIVE. And who can forget when there was always one certain tape you wanted but couldn't rent because it was a "grown up film"? Mine was BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

When visiting a propper video rental, you could always be sure that you'd come home with a bag of microwave popcorn and a large coke, just to make the experience more cinematic. Thhis was because video rentals wanted as much money as they could to get new tapes, so they sold food like popcorn and ice creams to garner even more money. Hey, don't complain, you're the one who was sat watching ROBOCOP 2 stuffing your face with popcorn all those years ago!



One really annoying thig that has seemed to become a trend in recent years is that many of the larger rental chains, such as Blockbuster, have turned their sights to DVD and blu-ray only. The best place to look for tapes is smallish, independent rentals that have been going for years. They're likely to have some tapes left.



As I draw my article to a close, I feel the need to say that video rental aren't what they used to be, and never will. Maybe that's what or kids will say in 15 years when they're remeniscing back on the days of high defenition DVD and blu ray.
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