Blowout Video
Airport Road - Hazleton, PA
The news of Hollywood Video closing reminded me of the Blowout Video rental store that was inside the Wal-Mart in Hazleton. I worked there for a bit in 1999 while I was recovering from a car accident. The store changed from Blowout Video to Movie Gallery while I was still working there, and our stock at the time was entirely VHS tapes and games for Playstation and Nintendo 64. It closed sometime in the mid 2000's.
It was a great summer job. We got unlimited free rentals, and we had a pretty impressive collection of horror and science fiction, so I got to catch up on a lot of movies that I've always wanted to see. We were also allowed to put a movie on the televisions that hung in the top corners of the store (the old CRT boxes of the late 90's). The only rule was that I couldn't show a movie that had profanity or nudity. The Wedding Singer was one of my go-to selections, and I got really good at knowing exactly when to hit mute during Adam Sandler's rendition of "Somebody Kill Me".
