Rental Return: Tales From the Video Store

We close out season 4 with a first for Rental Return as we interview a father and son who both worked at video rental stores. Joe shares amazing stories about his time as the general manager of Canadian chain, The Video Movie Place from 1984-1988, while Mike reveals how much the business changed a decade later when he worked at Blockbuster Video. Plus, we announce a special event screening of docu...

Lee joins us to recount his experience working at multiple Movie Gallery stores throughout the state of Iowa. Hear tales of getting peed on while dressed up as The Grinch for in-store events, destroying video store shelves with Spider-Man style shenanigans and so much more! Follow @TRNsocial on X, Instagram , and Facebook for more Rental Return visuals provided by our Video Heroes and other memori...

David joins us to tell the fascinating tale of working in a privately owned video rental store in Wisconsin from it's opening day in 1999 to it's abrupt closing 8 years later. Plus learn about the documentary he created during the store's final year. Get more details about the doc here http://sevenyearrental.squarespace.com/synopsis/ Follow @TRNsocial on X , Instagram , and Facebook for more inclu...

Dalibor joins us to share stories of working at Blockbuster Video in the early 2000's during the transition from VHS to DVD to streaming, explains how he became the top seller of upgraded memberships and more. Follow @TRNsocial on X , Instagram , and Facebook for more including visuals from our Video Heroes. If you are a former rental store employee and would like to be interviewed for an upcoming...

Rob joins us to share his tales of the first video rental store in Australia, founded by his father in 1980. Lines out the door, Mickey Mouse costumes, gangsters, illegal porn and more! We've never heard wild stories like these before. Press Play now for one of kind stories from Down Under. Follow @TRNsocial on X , Instagram , and Facebook for more including visuals from our Video Heroes. If you a...

Danielle from the No More Late Fees podcast shares her experience working at 4 different Blockbuster Video locations in Florida during the early 2000's, breaks down the daily grind and you won't believe the story she shares at the end about an incident in the video game section. Follow @TRNsocial on X , Instagram , and Facebook for more including visuals from our Video Heroes. If you are a former...

Dirk Marshall from the VH-US podcast share his fantastic stories about growing up in a mom & pop video rental store during the 80's and 90's. Discover all the awesome promotional items he brought home as a kid, what he did with movie screener tapes, the terrifying tale of cockroaches invading a VCR and so much more! You can check out Dirk's podcast at vh-us.com . Follow @TRNsocial on X , Insta...

Rental Return is back for Season 4! In this kickoff episode, Adam and Chad Young (Horror Movie BBQ) introduce the new season of interviews with former video rental store employees, explore a long closed video rental store through instagram, talk about favorite childhood VHS tapes and recent additions to their video collections. Plus, a very special farewell to dearly departed friend and producer o...

With Season 3 of Rental Return in the books, Adam ( @Hojukoolander ) and Jason ( @RD80s ) bookend the season by reflecting on what they learned through the experiences shared by the Video Heroes. They discuss some of the most interesting stories, things they did not know about the video store business, and favorite moments overall. They also talk about some recent video rental news including Netfl...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store concludes with an interview of Landall Goolsby ( @iamlandall ) who owned his a video store, Landall's Box Office, up through 2019. He also worked at several stores in the New Mexico area which he started working at 13. Randall talks about the circumstances of beginning in the video store industry, managing stores, and then owning his own store...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with an interview of Russ Burlingame ( @RussBurlingame ) who worked at Emerald City Video and just about every chain video store during the 2000s in the Syracuse area. Russ talks about the difference between working at a "Mom and Pop" store versus the corporate giants. He remembers some of the unique décor at Emerald City Video inclu...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with an interview of Michael May ( @MichaelMayComix ) who worked for a "Mom and Pop" store called Adventureland Video (later changed to Aardvark Video) in the late 80s in Tallahassee, Florida. Listen as he shares his early memories of visiting the store and how eventually was hired and became the manager for a time. Michael talks abo...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with an interview of Andy Serwin who worked for a "Mom and Pop" store called The Video Hut in the late 80s in rural Pennsylvania. Listen as he shares his memories of working at the store and the family atmosphere it had when he started. Then he talks about new ownership and how he eventually moved on from working at the store. Andy a...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with an interview of Michael Labbe ( @Superstarml ) who worked for Movie Gallery in Augusta, ME in the late '90s to early 2000s. Listen as he shares his memories of working at the store, what he did in a typical week, and perks. Michael also remembers the layout of the store, encounters with the adult film room, and the unique time o...

Season 3 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store kicks off with an interview of Landon ( @HOC_STUDIOS ) who grew up in a family-owned store in the early to mid '90s. Listen as he shares his memories of the store his mother ran for several years including her trips to the VHS warehouse that sold tapes and promotional items. Brandon also talks about the setup of the store, his favorite and lea...

Adam, Chad, and Jason host a preview episode for Season 3 of the Rental Return podcast series. First, the hosts comment on the recent representation of rental stores on Netflix including Blockbuster and That 90s Show . Then the trio share recent VHS finds in thrift stores and on eBay. Then, get a sneak preview of what to expect for Season 3 of Rental Return. Follow @TRNsocial on Twitter , Instagra...

Get ready for Season 3 of Rental Return as we introduce our Video Heroes! Thanks to our monthly supporters Chad Droze retrodolls77 Tim Heasley ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

With Season 2 of Rental Return in the books, Adam ( @Hojukoolander ), Chad ( @HorrorMovieBBQ ), and Jason ( @RD80s ) bookend the season by reflecting on what they learned through the experiences shared by the Video Heroes. They discuss some of the crazier stories, things they did not know about the video store business, and favorite moments overall. They also talk about some old newspaper stories...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store comes to a close with "Pushing Stop." This episode features the final days of video stores from the perspective of our Video Heroes. You'll hear how DVD, Blu-Ray, and Netflix affected the operation of their stores. Then, listen how some of our Heroes ended their tenures and their perspective on other store closings in the area. With the perspe...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with "Secrets of the Staff." This episode features some wild stories of staff shenanigans during and after business hours. Here Brandon tell about an epic pen-throwing war that occurred after hours one night that ended with an exploding marker and a clean up that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Our Heroes also take us behi...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with "Video Land Maniacs." This episode is all about the craziest customer interactions our Video Heroes had to deal with as well as regular customers that were quirky or they tried to avoid. Billy tells about the time Quentin Tarantino and Sophia Coppola visited the store. Alan and Joe talk about some customers they suspected were d...

During the Rental Return Season 2 Preview episode, several video rental themed newspaper articles from the '80s were discussed which included the small chain of California based stores called Captain Video. A quick google search by Adam found one still in existence and planned a trip to visit the store and interview the owner of 37 years, Ira Belfer. Listen to the interview and watch the video ver...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with "Rewind the Grind!" In Episode 2, we asked our Video Heroes why they were motivated to work at a video store and how they got the job. Now in Episode 3, we get more into their daily routines at the store like what were their favorite parts of the job and on the flip side, what was their least favorite things to do. We'll also fi...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store continues with "Pushing Play!" In Episode 1, we introduced our Video Heroes including their first experiences with renting VHS tapes and what their local video stores were like. Now in Episode 2, you'll get a deeper knowledge of why our Heroes wanted to work at a video rental store. You'll get to hear how they got the job which for Bryan was a...

Season 2 of Rental Return - Tales From the Video Store has begun! We hope you enjoyed our preview episode featuring Adam, Chad, and Jason, but now it's time to give our Video Heroes the spotlight in Episode 1 of Rental Return. Episode 1 "Meet the Heroes" will be your introduction to the interviewees in Season 2 of Rental Return . Our "Video Heroes" include Mark DeWitt ( @Mark_DeWitt ), Brian B. (...