They brought back Blockbuster. It was a hipster thing, I guess. Like vinyl records or knitting. All over the country, in every city, in every town - there was a Blockbuster Video again.

They immediately went big with it. They certainly didn't do focus groups. They didn't update the concept one iota. They just moved forward in blind faith that there was a market for it.

(They must have had some funding. Some middle-aged recluse who'd made their money and could afford to indulge their nostalgia on such an unprecedented scale.)

And the thing was, the real kicker here is, there WAS a market for it. It was as if people were waiting for it - a community of cassette tape renters laying dormant amongst us until the time was right. Until the automatic doors slid open once again. Analogue sleeper agents hiding in plain sight.

Hungry to slip back under the flickering fluorescent lights.

Everything was the same. The wide aisles, the cassette tape boxes spaced out evenly across the shelves. Hundreds of boxes of the same movies. A hundred Tom Cruises looking worriedly at an explosion, as if to say "Shit, there's an explosion over there, I better not go that way, unless I want to get exploded". And no actual tapes to rent of anything popular. That was important too.

You got a wall of boxes, but no rental tapes behind them. People had to learn the skill again, of judging perspective, of knowing whether any of the boxes were protruding slightly from the wall, signifying a lone rental tape behind. You sort of stared at them, with your eyes unfocussed and saw if anything popped out at you. Like a magic eye picture.

(They sold magic eye posters too. That was important. People loved them.)

Blockbuster employees were back. In order to rent you the videos. That was part of the deal. And somehow they were the same as you remembered - the same mix of moral superiority and inept servitude. They were exclusively either a high school crush or a forty year old man with OPINIONS - that was the only two kinds. They were everywhere. In their blue polo shirts with the gold embroidered logo. You would ask them "do you have any copies of The Mummy Returns out back?" and they would answer "no, we definitely don't" just like you remembered. They were everywhere - restocking the Blockbuster brand popcorn by the till (which no one bought because they also sold Butterkist and who would buy own brand over Butterkist?) or building an elaborate 3D display featuring Kurt Russel as Snake Pliskin out of corrugated cardboard.

(Look at their hands, look at the paper cuts, the Blockbuster employees bled for us. "Are you not entertained?" - Russel Crowe in Gladiator).

And people thronged to the stores. They loved it. They loved returning the video by posting it back through a hole in the wall. They loved being charged more money if they didn't return it on time. They loved the tiny screen resolution and being kind and rewinding.

Sony started making video players again. And Cathode Ray Tube televisions to plug them into. No one had them at first but even that didn't stop initial interest. People just wandered round brandishing their video rentals like badges of honour - balanced them on their heads, putting them on bookshelves until it was time to return them. It was a fad. It was retro. It was cool.

Finally Blockbuster got so big that it was able to buy Netflix and shut it down completely. Blockbuster was the ultimate comeback kid. No one saw it coming.

I guess revenge is a dish best served cold.

Like family-sized bottles of Fanta and Butterkist popcorn.

<aside> 💡 Hey, my name’s Chris Mead. I write an article about improv almost every week. You can get the latest in your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter. Or check out the archive.

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