Blockbuster University (Or, How To Sell Video Tapes Through Mass Psychosis)

I seem to have stumbled upon a thread of commonality regarding the most recent entries in my blog. In my last post, I talked about a terrible TV show, made in 1990, that found a second life thanks to the internet. And today, more of the same, except instead of a TV show, it's a training video made by Blockbuster.

Blockbuster, you may remember, was a terrible, terrible place that, thanks to Netflix, no longer exists. It also is Exhibit A in my argument that nostalgia is basically a prelude to fascism - go on YouTube, and in the comments section of any Blockbuster related video, you'll undoubtedly see people waxing poetic about how they miss going out to Blockbuster and renting movies. As if spending six dollars on a scratched DVD copy of The Patriot starring Mel Gibson is anything we as a culture should aspire to return to.

HE IS PROVOCATIVELY DRESSED, ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. In 1990, Blockbuster produced a training video to train their new employees in the fragile art of selling movies to their customers. Long story short: it's fucking awful. And I'm going to talk about why.

Now, I understand training videos are very hard to do well - I've seen plenty that are entertaining in an ironic way, but never have I seen one that I actually consider to be "good." I'm guessing the reasons for this are because training videos are meant to teach people rather mundane and boring things, like how to operate a cash register or how to make a hamburger. Furthermore, though I don't have any evidence to back this up, I'm guessing the scripts for these videos are all written by people at the corporate level who have no knowledge or training in creative writing - despite my wishes, they aren't going to get Thomas Pynchon to write a script about what good customer service is.

"A screaming came across the Blockbuster..."

This, I'm pretty sure, is the main issue with training videos. When I was in school, I had professors that could entertainingly and humorously discuss things like Moby Dick and The Five Points of Fucking Calvinism - if it's possible to do that, then it's theoretically possible, at least in my view, to create a training video that's genuinely funny. But it doesn't happen. All we get are embarrassing attempts at trying to be entertaining that only serves to demonstrate how out of touch company executives are with the very consumer base they're in business to serve. Blockbuster University is one of the most bizarre examples of this phenomenon. Here's the video, in case you want to watch along with me.

The video centers on Marie, a new Blockbuster employee. She runs into Mrs. Harris, the mother of a guy who she wants to have sex with - after awkwardly trying to help her in her movie search (and failing), a mysterious man appears on one of the store's TVs and starts talking to her.

This is Buster Sales, who, as his name, appearance, and voice seem to suggest, is right now probably serving a five to ten year sentence for raping a sorority house. At this point, however, he's basically Marie's spirit guide - he's come down from TV heaven to share the gospel of "Listening, Thinking, and Acting" to help Marie better service her customers. The rest of the film is more or less Marie doing just that.

What makes this film so bizarre is the ways in which it tries to be funny. Other training films are content with more pedestrian forms of humor, like parodying Michael Jackson or, my personal favorite, having a strange black man suck a kid into a microwave.

Oh, I'll be getting to you in good time, my friend.

This film, on the contrary, seems to get its "laughs" (if I could put five million pairs of air quotes around that word, I would) from poking fun at the mentally ill.

Let's not mince words: Marie is a girl who thinks people in the TV talk to her. Buster Sales can't interact with anyone except her, as he explicitly says at one point in the video. Furthermore, we can't forget about the most obnoxious scene in the entire film - to get Marie's attention, Buster appears on one of the TVs and starts banging like crazy on a pair of cymbals.

While Buster sits there with the biggest shit eating grin on his face, Marie has a full-on meltdown in the middle of the store, with every customer looking on in horror. We're supposed to laugh here, but how is that possible? The cymbals are obnoxious as hell, Buster's face makes you wanna punch it until he needs major reconstructive surgery, and Marie's reaction makes you want to call a hospital.

If you think this is just one scene out of many, think again - near the end, we're treated to Marie doing her damnedest to help a woman named Marge Simpson, who's shopping with her son Doug.

Alright, I need to rant for a second. Look, just look at how out of touch these writers are: this film was made in 1990, when The Simpsons was a bonafide cultural phenomenon in the US, and they include a character named Marge Simpson, and do nothing with her. As astonishing as it seems, the """"""Creative Talent"""""" responsible for this film seem to be the only people on the planet who don't know who the fucking Simpsons are. Alright, end of rant.

Getting back on track, this Marge Simpson woman has a son named Doug, and she wants to set him up with Marie. Marie calls Doug a nerd, but when we see him and hear him, we understand that "nerd" is code for "developmentally disabled."

At least Marie has the common decency to treat him like a human being. The same can't be said of asshole supreme, Buster Sales - when he sees him, he basically starts snorting like a pig and making fucked up faces.

Fuck this guy.

I mean, this isn't funny - this is straight up bullying. Remember last post, when I said you have to be really, really good at what you do if you want to do offensive humor? Well, clearly, the guys who wrote this piece of shit aren't quite up to tackling anything offensive. Also, I have to ask, if Buster Sales is supposed to be Marie's delusion, are we supposed to understand what he does as Marie's unconscious feelings towards Doug?

Of course, that's what we think in the moment, but then at the end, we're thrown this curve ball. Marie has learned the gospel of "Listening, Thinking, and Acting" and was able to help all her customers. So we end by being introduced to another new employee, who, just like Marie, is seen talking to the TV, getting the exact same advice!

So I guess every employee is suffering from the same delusion, and this Blockbuster is basically the equivalent to Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690s. Only this time, instead of being lead to accuse innocent people of witchcraft, this delusion causes them to, um, be good employees? So in order to excel in customer service, you need to be schizophrenic? At this point, I don't even know where to begin, so I'm not even going to try.

This film is, undoubtedly, the most offensive thing to come out of Blockbuster's checkered history, and considering that this was a company that was too holier-than-thou to carry any X-Rated films, was owned by one of the biggest environmental polluters in the country, and at one point tried to boycott widescreen DVDs, that's a hefty statement indeed. I'm literally in awe of how awful this film is, and that it was actually shown to other human beings with the goal of teaching them how to be a good employee. I'm so happy they went out of business - I plan on celebrating by recycling and watching the widescreen release of the greatest film of our generation, Boy Band.

I can't believe this blog post, it's macabre!