June 7th is National VCR Day!
And the Hattiesburg Pocket Museum is celebrating by unveiling its newest Alley installation – a little Free Blockbuster franchise location. Hattiesburg’s little Free Blockbuster joins two other Mississippi locations (Jackson and the Gulf Coast) in reviving the bygone days of stopping on your way home from work to browse for a movie to watch tonight.
One of America’s best-known brands during the 1990’s and 2000’s, Blockbuster’s brightly lit blue and yellow stores was THE place to go to find the perfect flick. At its peak, Blockbuster operated over 9,000 stores and employed 84,000 people. With the second-to-the-last Blockbuster store closing in November of 2013, only one store remains in Bend, Oregon. This store pays homage to a brand that lost its battle with the Internet and Netflix, by serving as a museum of VCR tape and DVD memorabilia, though it still functions as a video rental stop.
If you and your family are longing to “Make it a Blockbuster Night”, then come on down to the Pocket Alley where you can trade a working VCR movie or DVD for perhaps, a flick you missed. We even have video games to trade, just like Blockbuster.
Thanks to Brian Morrison, a Los Angeles resident who repurposed old newspaper kiosks by branding them with the Blockbuster logo and supplying a small inventory of DVDs or VHS cassettes, there are now hundreds of tiny franchises popping up in the United States, Australia, Europe and Mexico!
The Pocket Museum’s newest amenity will keep the Blockbuster tradition alive by supplying alley guests with DVDs and VHS tapes to trade to their heart’s content! Some may have to explain to the young ones what VCRs, Betamax, DVDs and Blu-ray are, but let’s face it retro is cool!
Come see the Alley’s Blockbuster franchise and take a few and leave a few…but remember….“Please Be Kind and Rewind”.
*Photo courtesy of the Hattiesburg Pocket Museum
