Blockbuster Video Released a Super Bowl Ad…On VHS

Earlier this month, we found out that Blockbuster Video in Bend, Oregon was planning a Super Bowl ad this year. So, how does a family-owned franchise store manage to afford the astronomical rates of advertising on the big game? They…don’t. But they have another solution that’s guaranteed to go a little viral, and which is perfectly Blockbuster. That is to say, it’s coming to VHS, and you can only get it at Blockbuster. That makes it their second Blockbuster exclusive in about 20 years, with the previous one being the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Last Blockbuster, a documentary about the store.

It isn’t quite as exciting as our theory that they might be making a horror movie of some kind, but it’s original content, created by (or at least on behalf of) the store. It’s a pretty cool idea, and a lot of fun for people who live close enough to Bend that they can get their hands on a copy.

The trailer will debut in-store as part of a Super Bowl viewing party at the location. Those who don’t live in and around Bend can see the ad at halftime on the Bend Blockbuster’s Instagram page. You can see a message from the store below.

Instagram has been key to building hype for this. In a pair of social media teasers, both bearing the date February 12, 2023, cockroaches and Blockbuster were put in the same space — once, with a Blockbuster Video standing alone in a blasted-out landscape with a giant stylized cockroach on top of it, and another featuring an employee typing on Blockbuster’s DOS-based point of sale system while a cockroach works its way along the counter.

Blockbuster was a household name for decades, with thousands of stores nationwide at one point. Now, it’s down to one — after years of several franchise stores hanging on by a thread long after Blockbuster had closed its corporate stores in 2014. The Bend store, the subject of the documentary film The Last Blockbuster, also trades on its status as the last vestige of an iconic American brand by selling branded merchandise for what has effectively become a tourist destination.

The documentary itself, crowdfunded on Kickstarter, debuted at a local drive-in theater during the pandemic, and then became a viral hit when it came to (irony of ironies) Netflix. A VHS copy of the movie is currently available on Lunchmeat VHS, and the Blockbuster Bend website has it available in more contemporary formats.

Last year, Netflix ran Blockbuster, a multi-camera sitcom about a parody version of the world’s last Blockbuster Video, for a single season before cancelling it.