scorecard
  1. Home
  2. international
  3. news
  4. 3. The Last Blockbuster

3. The Last Blockbuster

Dan Bobkoff,Anna Mazarakis,Claire Rawlinson   

3. The Last Blockbuster

How has Blockbuster Video survived against the odds so long in Alaska, and what will its decline mean? Before the world's last Blockbuster stores disappear forever, we pay them a visit on the last frontier to find out.

Reported by Dan Bobkoff, Ravenna Koenig, and Emily Russell. Produced by Anna Mazarakis and Clare Rawlinson. Special thanks to Emily Kwong and Sarah Wyman.

Read more:

Transcript

Note: This transcript may contain errors.

DAN BOBKOFF: Do you remember those Friday nights, going to the video store? You'd roam around the aisles with your best friend or your dad, looking for that perfect thing to watch at the end of the week?

My video store was really small. This was a mom and pop kind of place, it just had one aisle. And we'd go around in circles and sometimes we'd find nothing that we wanted to watch.

Then a new place opened a few towns over.

BLOCKBUSTER AD: The perfect video store. Welcome to Blockbuster video!...

DB: This place had no charm. It was at the end of a strip mall. It had bright fluorescent lighting. And if you asked someone on staff a question, they just could not be bothered. There was an aggressive selection of candy near the checkout. And it had a lot more movies than the place I used to go to in town. And so, for a lot of us, this is where we ended up going.

BLOCKBUSTER AD: There's one near you… Blockbuster video! Wow! What a difference!

DB: And to be honest, I sometimes felt a little guilty about it. Blockbuster was uninspiring, but it was convenient.

And then the local video store in our town shut down a few years later. And we felt kind of complicit.

Then came the Internet. And Netflix took on video rental.

BBC: So Blockbuster has called in administrators to try to salvage something and stave off the possibility of going bust…

DB: Blockbuster folded in 2013. And it seemed like all of them vanished overnight. Another empty storefront next to what used to be a Radio Shack or a Borders.

There's a Barnes & Noble in my neighborhood where I live now. And I don't know why, but sometimes I just go in there to smell the fresh books or the stale scones. It's just comforting knowing that it's still there. It feels like this trip back to the '90s where I'd go to the mall with my parents.

And I imagine I'd have a similar feeling...if I could walk into a Blockbuster today.

CECILIA: When I walked in I said, 'Welcome back to the nineties.'

PETE: Yeah, it's pretty nostalgic.

DB: But to do that, I'd have to go far far away. To the last frontier. To Alaska….

From Business Insider and Stitcher, this is Household Name, the show about brands you know, and stories you don't. I'm Dan Bobkoff.

Today: Blockbuster video.

I thought Blockbuster was gone, finished, dead. All over in 2013.

NEWS: It is the end of an era.

It's the latest in a string of retail casualties.

Blockbuster will close all of its remaining stores.

All its stores by early next year.

DB: Turns out that's not exactly what happened. Against the odds, a few renegade Blockbusters hung on for years. They're zombies: independent franchises that continued to rent DVDs long after the company itself folded.

They're in Alaska, in a state very different from the continental US — the lower 48. These bizarro Blockbusters call themselves "The Last Frontier." And they're almost extinct - just weeks from closing their doors.

Before they disappear forever, we went to find out how these Alaskan Blockbusters held on for all these years.

And why do we care? Why do we feel so much nostalgia and connection to something that we no longer need?

So, we're off to Alaska…

Stay with us for a journey - that might feel like a journey into the past...

ACT I

DB: Here are some basic facts about Alaska: It's two and a half times the size of Texas, but its population is only a little bigger than the District of Columbia. Nearly half of those people live in Anchorage. Oh, and it still has two Blockbuster Videos that have survived against the odds.

EMILY RUSSELL: Yeah, it's sort of like a time warp here.

DB: Emily Russell, you're a reporter in Alaska, and you're going to be our guide in Anchorage. You actually stopped into the Blockbuster there in May. So I want to know, what's it like to walk into a Blockbuster in 2018?

ER: Honestly, it feels like walking back into the 1990s. I walk in and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air is playing on a big, boxy TV that's hanging from the ceiling.

[FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR CLIP]

ER: There are rows and rows of DVDs as you'd expect. There's also the actual jockstrap Russell Crowe wore in a movie, which you might not expect. We'll get to that later. I pass people renting movies. And they're exchanging physical cash for physical movies.

RENTER: I want to watch Father of the Bride tonight.

ER: But first I meet the manager.

ER: Kevin?

KEVIN DAYMUDE: Sometimes.

ER: (laughs)

ER: Kevin is huge, like the size of football player. And he's washing the windows.

KD: Right now I'm just a window guy. How you doing?

ER: Good, how are you?

KD: Hanging in there.

ER: His name is Kevin Daymude, and he's really proud of his candy aisle.

KD: Double Bubble. Old school...

ER: Kevin is a lifelong Alaskan. He's been working at Blockbusters since 1991, and he rose up to become the manager of all 15 franchises here in Alaska. Now there are only two left.

I get the sense talking to Kevin that these Alaskan Blockbusters — which are independent franchises — have been a much bigger deal in people's lives.

KD: And you talk movies, come on. What job can you just sit there and say, 'I've had a customer come in and say I'm looking for a good John Wayne movie, I'm a John Wayne fanatic.' I talked for half an hour with her because her husband's sick and he likes john wayne movies. She went back home with a big old stack of movies and it's like, you made me feel important, and that's what we try to do with the customers is make them feel important.

I've been a store manager at every store here in Anchorage, Eagle River and Wasilla, and I have customers that I've known since 1992. I mean I even know their number, 1562.

DB: Maybe this is unfair of me, but I kind of didn't expect the manager of a Blockbuster to care so much.

ER: I know right? The Blockbuster I grew up going to in upstate New York did not have this feeling at all. It was way less personal. But Kevin has come up with all sorts of ways to make people keep coming in. One of the ways he did that was with this thing called the kid print. So families with kids would come in and the kids would sit in front of this video camera.

KD: Everything was free, bring your kids in, we'll video tape them, we'll ask them some questions.

ER: And at the end of it, those kids and their families could go home with a free VHS tape.

KD: I loved asking the kids questions and the parents were shocked. Like 'who do you like playing with?' 'I like Johnny', and they were like 'who's Johnny?' The parents were totally in the dark with this stuff. And I've had parents hug me saying this is so helpful.

DB: This sounds almost like a community center.

ER: In a way. But even though this independent store has managed to hang on for five years after the Blockbuster company itself went out of business… And even though I saw customers come in every ten minutes, including teenagers. And even though Kevin's done all these things to keep his customers loyal… I got a sense of sadness in his voice.

KD: I mean i would love to be here as long as I can. It's hard to feel burned down on something you're excited about.

ER: Just this year, Kevin has had to close down two more Blockbusters.

KD: The big thing is the economy. Economy is tough right now. So people are still renting, but they're not renting as much. They're renting the 49 cents to 79 cents. And that's hard to keep open.

ER: But what's happened is that now that there are so few left, they're kind of like living museums. Or tourist attractions.

KD: Tour buses were stopping in front of the store.

PETE: Since I was coming to Alaska, I was like, 'can we go to Blockbuster?' Considering this is the last one right. I'm Pete, I'm from England. We used to have a Blockbuster in our local town….

ER: People like Pete come in and gasp.

PETE: Nostalgic. Smells the same.

KD: People were coming out, taking pictures of Blockbusters, getting back in the tour bus, and they go off on their merry way. I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?' So I said, 'We got to do something here. This is crazy.'

ER: This place has become nostalgia central.

KD: I can't tell you all the places I've mailed t-shirts and hoodies out. In fact I have one package here that's going out to Brazil.

ER: People love this stuff, he says.

KD: I've had people from Ireland call.

ER: Especially the t-shirts.

KR: Well the front obviously has the Blockbuster ticket. And then it has Alaska underneath it, which you gotta promote Alaska, come on. How many people have shirts from Alaska? And on the backside, it has the state of Alaska, and inside it has Blockbuster, and on the bottom of the actual state it says "the last frontier," which is the quote from Alaska itself, which has always been the last frontier.

ER: Kevin actually spends a large chunk of his day now packing up souvenirs and putting them into envelopes and boxes. He drives to the post office himself and he sends the out to fans all across the world. He says it's actually started to make up a decent chunk of his profit.

KD: You're looking at probably about a good 7%.

ER: Seven?

KD: Yeah.

DB: And isn't that all before John Oliver did this?

JOHN OLIVER: You know, buy Russell Crowe's jockstrap and send it to one of the last remaining Blockbusters in Alaska. Even that sentence is absolutely incredible to say out loud.

ER: Yeah, comedian John Oliver went on his HBO show last week tonight, that was a couple months ago and he was making fun of this auction for movie memorabilia belonging to the actor Russell Crowe, and one of those things that was being auctioned off was this jock strap that Russell Crowe wore in the movie Cinderella Man.

And John Oliver had this really bright idea that he would give this jock strap, and he bought a couple other things belonging to Russell Crowe, and he would give it to one of the last remaining Blockbusters in alaska.

DB: So this is like a weird save Blockbuster charity effort.

ER: Super, super weird. And at the end of the clip, John Oliver looks into the camera and says,

JOHN OLIVER TAPE: To the manager of the only remaining Blockbuster in Anchorage, Alaska, at 5600 Debarr Road #5, all of this shit is yours. Just call us in the next 48 hours and we will send it to you.

KD: My phone at home was going berserk. I'm like 'what the heck is going on here?' I'm getting all these messages on our Facebook page talking about Russell Crowe or you know, John Oliver. And I was like, 'Who the heck is John Oliver?' I mean, I've heard of him, but I haven't seen the show.

ER: Kevin says he thought it was all a hoax. Like there's no way a comedian would actually buy this stuff, and even if he did, was he actually going to send it up to some store in Alaska?

KD: And you will not believe how we got ahold of these guys. Just somebody random called me up from Wisconsin. This was Monday, at probably about 10:30 in the morning. He called me up says he has a cousin that works for HBO and has a phone number to the front desk to the show. And I went, 'yeah, okay, whatever.' And he goes, 'No, I'm serious.' We called him up and that's how we got ahold of him within 48 hours.

ER: And that's why when you walk in the front door... you immediately see that display of Russell Crowe movie memorabilia, the stuff that was on John Oliver's show. And of course front and center, in a glass box, is the jockstrap he wore in Cinderella man.

PETE: And there it is-- the memorabilia right there.

ER: It's that jockstrap that brought Pete all the way from England to this Blockbuster here in Anchorage.

PETE: It's nice to see, take a picture, say I've been there, because my family watches Last Week Tonight as well.

ET: He's actually here with another Brit, his friend Cecilia, who lives here in Anchorage.

CS: I didn't know about the Russell Crowe memorabilia until Pete came along and we're like, 'Okay, yeah we'll have to go visit it.'

ER: Are people coming in here just for that or is it just? Yes ok you're shaking your head.

KD: Yes, yes, yes. So they got excited because they got a picture of the jockstrap and I let them hold the little display and they got pretty excited about it.

ER: But despite all this, watching Kevin in the backroom… I got the sense he knows deep down that even this Blockbuster can't survive forever.

KD: There's a box here that's going out to Brazil...

I've always wanted to feel positive about it, you have to. If you feel negative about it, it's going to go and trickle down to your employees. You can't. You can't go, 'oh my gosh, what's tomorrow going to bring?' What's the next day?

Let's be real, you've got Netflix, you've got RedBox. If you've got an issue, who are you going to call?

But you still have in the back of your mind, ok what can I do to change? You're constantly trying to figure out new ways to change something even if it's just getting that extra dollar in the store.

When corporate closed down, we just took everything. These are actual work shirts that we have that have Blockbuster written on the side… I'm a pack rat! that we're going to sell for like $10.

I mean it's a business, I mean you have to figure out, what's going to bring those people in, or what's going to have them come out and leave with something extra in their hands?

ER: Do you ever think negative though?

KD: There's times, there's times. And I'm too old for them. I gotta stay positive.

DB: But I still want to know: what is it about Alaska that allowed these renegade Blockbusters to survive all these years?

ER: And I have the perfect person to answer that question for you. My friend Ravenna is a reporter all the way up in Fairbanks. It's a whole different world up there.

DB: That in a minute.

ACT II

DB: Ok, we're back.

RAVENNA KOENIG: It's 6pm on a Wednesday.

DB: And now we're in one of the most northern cities in the United States. Fairbanks.

RK: Ok, there is the Blockbuster sign.

DB: Reporter Ravenna Koenig is our guide. And she's looking for someone.

RK: I wonder if that's Troy in the truck…

RK: I'm going to meet up with a guy who has lived here a lot longer than I have and is a Blockbuster patron. He goes to Blockbuster so often that they leave stuff out for him.

RK: Are you Troy? Hi! Ravenna.

RK: And if you're wondering if people care as much up here as in Anchorage…

TROY BOUFFARD: That guy just walked over here and took a picture of the Blockbuster.

RK: That guy did, just now?

TB: A lot of people do, it's funny.

RK: Still?

TB: Yeah.

RK: Well, I was surprised. There aren't many cars here...

RK: So Troy is a former Army guy. He was in the Army for over 20 years.

TB: My name is Troy Bouffard, and I got to Alaska in 2004 on assignment from the U.S. Army.

RAVENNA: And he was deployed several times, he did two combat tours in Iraq.

TB: Then the new striker brigade…

RK: And then after he retired from the Army, he became a defense contractor and an academic at the university here. And he's a Blockbuster regular.

TB: I tend to like action movie drama, the newer stuff. But it can't be so new that it's due back in like one day, because I'm not… I'll forget.

RK: You're not good about returning them?

TB: No. No no.

RK: In the winter, he's here every week. But in the summer, less so.

RK: Have you seen Atomic Blonde?

TB: I have, I own that one. It's so good.

RK: I thought it was really good too. I love that movie.

DB: So I've never been to Alaska, and I have this theory that there's something about the state that explains how these Blockbusters have managed to stay open for so long after the chain itself went out of business. Am I right?

RK: Well, to answer that, I'm going to take you on a little bit of a journey….

RK: Are you gonna get something?

TB: Nah, I think everything's too new.

RK: …with Troy.

Troy and I drive a bit outside of town, about ten miles.

RK: This is a really roomy truck!

RK: And the second you get out of town, it becomes just green, rolling hills.

TB: There's just one day, and it's called greenup where all of a sudden there's just this halo, this aura of green everywhere. This tinge as far as you can see.

RK: And he's taking me somewhere I've never been before. It's this gorgeous, not-quite mountain

RK: Whoaaaaa, oh my gosh, oh my gosh...

called Ester Dome.

RK: whoaaaa, I am looking out the window at Fairbanks. I have not yet been this high. I didn't even know you could come up on it! Oh my goodness, how high up do you think we are?? What's the elevation on this?!

TB: Maybe 18, 19 hundred feet...

RK: But you can see this cluster that's like "oh, that's Fairbanks," and wow!

RK: This is the first time I've ever been somewhere where my ears are popping! And when you look out over the side, you can see the whole city down there, from way up high!

RK: Just turning in a circle, you really can see how much of the land around you is not a city, it's not Fairbanks. It is just Alaska. And I'm sure there are like cabins and homesteads and people who are nestled throughout that landscape, but a lot of them are few and far between, and you just really get a visual sense of how small this community of about 100,000 thousand people is in this vast, vast landscape.

TB: It's difficult to get a cable subscription up here, the primary cable provider… they don't have a line everywhere.

RK: Just looking at this topography, you can see why it's not cheap to wire this place for internet, especially when you have a relatively small number of people spread out over a really big space.

Internet here can be expensive… it can be slow…it can be unreliable... and some people say they can't get internet just based on cost and where they are… how far they are out of town.

TB: There's still a lot of places here that don't have good Internet.

RK: This is the main factor.

RK: I posted on the Fairbanks facebook page saying 'Hey all! Working on a story about why Blockbuster still exists…' and a lot of people said 'I've been trying to get Internet forever and I still don't have it. Do a story about that.'

TB: Yeah, it took at least ten years to get something decent, and only recently did I get like really decent speeds and an amount of gigabytes, like a package that was… I don't have to think about it anymore, finally.

RK: But Troy never stopped going to Blockbuster.

TB: At this point, it's just a habit. I don't even need this anymore.

RK: Troy and I get back in the car, and we start talking about just how extreme the weather is here.

RK: Ugh! The mosquitoes!!

RK: Because that is such a feature of this place.

RK: Say what we call the mosquitoes in Alaska?

TB: Oh, the state bird? (laughs)

RK: Not that long ago, we were deep in wintertime. It gets cold. Like, even for the rest of Alaska.

NEWS: Hey, welcome back everyone! Once again, Mike Schultz, live and direct from the ice park.

RK: If you say you're from Fairbanks in Anchorage or Juneau, people look at you differently. They kind of… there's like a respect I think for people who can survive the dark and the cold of the Fairbanks winters.

NEWS: And the overnight low was 11 below, where it usually should be 10 below, so that's right around where it should be. Record high...

RK: Because it does regularly fall into negative temperatures, it's the kind of thing where you have to bring an emergency bag in your car with food and warm clothes and other emergency stuff because if your car breaks down kind of on a back road and you don't have service or your phone dies, you can be in real trouble.

TB: Winter survival here is a thing.

RAVENNA: And then it's also dark.

TB: December 21st, 22nd, where it's the least amount of light, you get about four hours. Maybe an hour of actual sun comes over the Alaska range. And goes right back down.

RK: You've gotta find something you can do, inside. And I think for a lot of people, that winds up being movies.

So Troy told me especially in the wintertime, he likes to have movies on in the background while he's cooking or grading papers…

TB: You hear how quiet it is here?

RK: Especially when the leaves are all gone…

TB: It is so quiet.

RK: The trees don't even make much noise.

TB: In the summer it's not so bad. I open up the windows… there's someone building a house up there and if the wind's just right, you can kind of hear a little bit of traffic, but it gets so quiet here.

RK: Well it's so funny, because so many people seem to be seeking quiet.

TB: It's a bit much though, no other part of life is that quiet. And it's almost too quiet.

RK: Maybe Blockbuster's existence or the existence of just hard copy movie renting in general is maybe in some ways bolstered a little bit or enabled, allowed to exist because of that part of Fairbanks culture that relishes being different.

I have had people say to me that they feel like Fairbanks is a little bit old school and maybe a little bit happy with that. Happy with the fact that there are parts of the past that are still alive here, like chopping wood and kind of building your own house and homesteading and growing your own food and all kinds of that stuff.

Everybody here has so many layers to them and so many layers to the life that they lead. They will be ex-Army and a professor at the university and will have built all the furniture in their house, and love movies.

Or they'll be an engineer, like an arctic engineer, and play in a bluegrass band and be like an expert clogger. Or they'll be the editor of a newspaper and have a dog team and be a very serious musher.

TB: You never know who you're talking to. What might pass as homeless-looking in the lower 48 might be the mayor, it might be one of the richest business owners in town, it might be an emeritus professor.

RK: And maybe the people this town attracts, are the kind of people who -- it's just not the end of the world if they can't stream Game of Thrones the night it airs.

DB: But even in Alaska, there's no escaping fate...That's in a minute.

ACT III

DB: Why do we care about places like Blockbuster when they're gone? Why do the tour buses stop and the visitors take pictures? Why do people buy t-shirts and keychains?

Maybe there's something about all the effort it took to rent a movie. You can stop a Netflix movie after five minutes, but getting a new flick at Blockbuster was like an event. But my theory is: I don't think it's really about the place. Places like Blockbuster are just a means to a memory.

KK: When we closed down the Wasilla store, which we didn't want to close down at the time, this little girl probably about 7 years old, cute as a button, blonde haired, just adorable, bawling and just big old crocodile tears.

DB: This is Kevin Daymude again. He's the manager of these Alaskan Blockbusters.

KD: And she's just crying and I said, 'what's wrong?' And she goes 'my mommy and I would come here every Friday night. We'd order a pizza, come over to Blockbuster, get our movies, get the pizza, and go home and have a Friday night movie night with just her and I and now we can't do that.' I had to leave the building because I was like I can't handle this. It breaks my heart. What do you say to a little girl like that? I'm sorry?

DB: You can probably guess where this story goes next. In July, the final two Blockbusters in Alaska accepted their fate...

ALAN PAYNE: Well, we're in the process of closing the final two stores.

DB: This is Alan Payne. He owns these Alaskan Blockbusters, but not for much longer.

Amazingly, he says they're still profitable, but the profits are falling, and at this point it's about hanging it up before they lose money, too.

AP: In fact, one of the things we always get a little frustrated with is when we close a store, so many of the people who come in say they just can't believe we're closing because they love us so much and then we'll ask them 'when was the last time you were here to rent a movie?' And they can't remember. So they have great memories of it. The weekend visit to the store to see your friends and rent a movie to gome home and watch it with friends and family, but for whatever reason, they stop doing it.

DB: And so it was in July, a few days after Alan announced that the last two stores in Alaska are closing, reporter Emily Russell went back to the store in Anchorage.

[KNOCKING]

VOICE: They're not open until 12.

ER: I know… (fade under tracking)

ER: So, I'm back. It's mid-July now, and it's been a couple months since I talked to Kevin Daymude, the general manager. But before I get to him, I have to push past a crowd of people. They've been waiting here for hours to get in. The doors to the blockbuster are still locked. It doesn't look like a funeral quite yet.

[DOOR OPENING]

ER: Thank you

SPEAKER 1: We open at 12…

SPEAKER 2: Hey, what's up?

ER: Kevin?

SPEAKER 2: Kevin's over this way.

ER: Wonderful, thank you. I cannot believe there's a line around both corners of this store!

SPEAKER 2: They've been here since 9:15.

ER: Wow!

ER So I find Kevin. He's tucked way over in the back corner of the store. He's wearing his bright blue blockbuster tee shirt.

ER: Test test test.

ER: And right now, he's stacking DVDs on shelves.

KD: What's going on lady?

ER: Hello, how are you doing?

KD: Oh it's crazy, it's crazy you know that. Just running tapes to put back on the shelf! That were checked in last night, so...

ER: What was it like to find out your stores were being closed down?

KD: Probably about a month ago. I had a feeling, so you kind of get an idea of it. And I told my employees probably about three weeks ago.

ER: And what was their reaction?

KD: Shock, just like mine. I mean, of course.

ER: In just a couple minutes, Kevin and the staff, they'll open the doors. But right now, those employees they're really calm. They're stacking the shelves with DVDs, they're prepping the cashier counters, they're making sure the candy is all lined up. It's sort of like the calm before the storm.

KD: We're going to be selling off all of our movies. BluRay DVDs, games… even the employees. CSRs are a dollar 99, managers are 2.50. I'm at least three bucks.

ER: And the plan for today? What's the plan for all the inventory and things like that?

KD: Well, we open at noon and that's when everything breaks loose, I'm going to go with that. We know that one.

ER: He's not kidding.

[AMBI OF WORKERS]

WORKER: Come on in guys, come on in!

ER: A crowd of people floods into the store. Kevin is holding one of those doors open, and he greets some of the customers that he recognizes.

KD: What are you doing here?

ER: Other people grab these blue plastic shopping baskets that are by the front door and race toward the aisles where they know their favorite DVDs are. There are kids, there are parents, there are people in uniforms, young couples.

KR: I was so scared to talk to the customers.

CUSTOMER 1: And I was so heartbroken… This was one of my favorite places to go, and I'm so sad it's going to be gone. Because it was one of the last ones in the world. So it's a bummer.

CUSTOMER 2: It's really sad, yeah what are we going to do for a video store now, you know?

CUSTOMER 3: My dad has been one of the few ones that's held out on Blockbuster… We don't have Netflix, we don't have Hulu or anything. We just got it recently... Up until last month we've been coming to Blockbuster pretty frequent, so it's sad to see it go.

ER: They're sad, sure, but people like Max are also stocking up. Really quickly that stack of baskets by the front door is gone. One customer I talked to told me Alaskans like a deal. That is totally true, I can attest to that. Everything here is for sale.

DB: Yeah, Alan Payne, the owner, says people buy it all.

AP: Yes. Everything. And usually pretty much everything does sell, including fixtures. (laughs) You know, people have actually bought signs. They've bought exterior signs. They've bought channel letter signs off buildings, they've bought interior Blockbuster tickets in the stores.

DB: So I guess somewhere in America in somebody's home, there's a big blockbuster sign.

AP: Yeah, yeah. I've often wondered what they do with it. In fact, the store that we closed in Wasilla several months ago, somebody took the awning off the store because they wanted that, and lord knows what they did with it. I don't know. But they did. (laughs)

DB: Alan Payne plans to write a book about Blockbuster. He's fascinated that the video store business went from nothing to boomtime to nothing again in just a quarter of a century.

AP: You know, why didn't Blockbuster or one of the other large video chains become the Netflix? What prevented that from happening?

DB: Blockbuster missed the boat on buying Netflix for just $50 million back in 2000. Today, Netflix is worth $160 billion.

But it's not over quite yet in Anchorage. They still have a few weeks to sell everything off.

ER: Do you guys still have VHSs any more?

KD: Oh my gosh, who are you? Rocky, she asked if we have VHSs.

ER: I heard someone commenting in line!

KD: I've had people call!

ER: Really?...

ER: And what's your plan?

KD: I have no idea. Part of me was thinking about going back to school. For my masters in teaching. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm going out to the highest bidder. I don't know what that means. (laughs)

ER: But staying in Anchorage, you think?

KD: Oh yeah, I'll be staying in Anchorage, oh yeah. We gotta stop meeting like this.

ER: Last time I promise...

ER: I still had one final question for Kevin.

ER: What about the jockstrap?

KD: Why you have to ask that?

ER: Turns out after all the craziness about the John Oliver segment on HBO, Kevin has had enough.

KD: And the reason why I asked you that is everyone asks about it. And I hate to say it this way… That stupid jockstrap. … and it kills me to hear everybody be more concerned about that jockstrap than the customers that have been faithful to us since the 1990s and the employees that have been… I mean, they're losing their jobs. And people just want to hear about that stupid jockstrap. And I'm not trying to be negative about it, but there's other things evolve around a piece of leather. So that's going to back to our owner.

AP: It's proudly on display in the store there in Anchorage. And it will be until it closes.

DB: What's gonna happen to all that after?

AP: Uh, well, it's the... we own it now, so that's a good question. (laughs) Hopefully it holds its value and is worth maybe even more someday. But I'm not sure what we'll do with it.

DB: So there's gonna be a Russell Crowe jockstrap without a home, come September.

AP: Yes, there will be a jockstrap, there will be a boxing robe, boxing shorts, there will be a vest from Les Miserables, and um, so yeah, we're the proud owners of that memorabilia now.

DB: So in honor of the last two Alaska Blockbusters closing, perhaps it's time for us to finally pay our respects.

FAKE FUNERAL: We gather here today to mourn the loss of our beloved Blockbuster Video.

During your all-too-short life, you provided the copies of Braveheart and Good Will Hunting we so desperately sought.

It took longer to find a movie to watch amongst your shelves, than it took to actually watch it.

You encouraged us all to be better people: to be kind…. And rewind. To be patient… when all copies of new rel-

KEN TISHER: Hey! Not so fast! Don't get out ahead of your skis! We actually have the last Blockbuster, and it's located in Bend, Oregon.

DB: And who is this?

KT: My name is Ken Tisher. I'm the owner of the last Blockbuster on planet Earth.

DB: So, if you still want to rent a DVD, or take a selfie at a Blockbuster, your last bet in the US is Bend, Oregon. Ken Tisher is ready for your tour bus, even if he doesn't have a jockstrap to show you.

CREDITS

DB: To hear Household Name without ads AND to get access to the first SIX episodes…sign up for Stitcher Premium at stitcherpremium.com/householdname and use promo code HOUSEHOLD for your first month free. And wherever you listen, please leave us a good review and rating. It really helps.

This episode was reported by Emily Russell, Ravenna Koenig, and me, Dan Bobkoff. I always try to be kind and to rewind. Our producer is Anna Mazarakis. Our senior producer is Clare Rawlinson.

Mixing, sound design and original music by Casey Holford and The Reverend John DeLore. Our editor is Peter Clowney.

The executive producers at Stitcher are Chris Bannon, Laura Mayer and Jenny Radelet.

Special thanks to Emily Kwong and to our funeral director, Alan Smith, and to our intern, Sarah Wyman.

Household Name is a production of Insider Audio.

READ MORE ARTICLES ON



Popular Right Now



Advertisement