[mechanical hum]
-All right, well, over here,
you've got all the used and new stuff for sale.
A lot of people sort of forget that we get new releases a lot.
-Matt Lynch works at Scarecrow Video on Roosevelt.
He's been there since 2003.
-The job at that point was mostly renting people movies
and putting the movies back on the shelves when they come back.
And so most of what you do all day
is have a big stack of movies under your arm,
and you have to learn where everything is,
or else it's going to take you forever to put it all away.
Some of my favorite little esoteric sections
are right here.
There's blaxploitation, "vroom" for car chase movies,
bikers, rednecks, truckers.
-I did my job.
-The store has only been there ten years longer than Matt.
-It's like I've been staring at these stacks for two decades,
and I can still find something I never saw before.
It's pretty amazing.
-There aren't too many video stores left in Seattle,
or really anywhere these days.
-I mean, you know, there are still video stores
up and running that have been started,
you know, in the meantime,
but they're certainly not as big as we are.
-But Scarecrow is special, and Matt is special, too.
-I just know -- I know myself pretty well.
I like it here. This is where I belong.
[film projector clicking]
-Of course, I'm not bright about doing things.
-One of his favorite movies was "The Wizard of Oz,"
and we really liked the character of the Scarecrow
because he had lots of heart and no brains.
And then it rhymed -- "scarecrow," "video,"
so we're like, "Okay, that's it, we're doing it."
-Rebecca Soriano has spent a lot of time
at Scarecrow Video.
She's the co-founder of the place along with George Latsios.
[ Tape rewinding ]
-George is a really cool guy.
-Well, I always wanted to have a video store.
I always loved movies and such, so...
Dream is to own your own movie theater,
your own, and of course, it's impossible these days.
So the next best thing was the video store.
-George was my husband,
and he and I met in Pennsylvania.
He wanted to have a video store,
and it was going to be the best video store ever.
He explained it to me,
and I bought into it and I said, "Okay."
So I remember when we moved in,
this was huge.
We didn't have enough tapes to fill it.
So the front part of the store was a place to drink coffee.
-That's interesting.
-George and Rebecca had a plan to buy a house
and work their day jobs for a while
until they had enough money saved to open a store,
but George couldn't wait that long,
so he quit his job.
But somehow they found a way to rent a storefront.
Before Roosevelt,
the first Scarecrow Video was at 65th and Latona.
-So it was tiny. It was --
I don't remember how many square feet,
but it wasn't very big.
We had 400 movies, approximately. I'm not sure.
George was in charge of kind of organizing the videos,
and I made the posters.
There's still one here. It makes me laugh.
The signs, I mean. Um, anyway...
Some of these signs I made myself,
which is amazing.
They're still here.
♪♪
-Scarecrow Video was not an overnight success.
Rebecca was teaching school
and working in the store in the evenings,
but the eclectic and growing collection
was attracting fans and building a following,
like musician Kurt Cobain and film critic Roger Ebert.
[ Telephone ringing ]
-One day I got a phone call from somebody,
and they were like,
"Roger Ebert just helped me find a movie in your store."
And I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool, isn't it?"
[ Chuckles ] It was so awesome.
-By the early '90s,
Scarecrow had outgrown its Latona home.
It was time to find someplace bigger.
-Just having one or a handful of great video stores.
And I don't mean the same town --
I want to scatter them everywhere.
Maybe one in Frisco, maybe one in Tokyo, one in London.
-The new Scarecrow Video was busier than ever.
Then tragedy struck.
George was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor.
There were many tough years.
George doubled down on working at Scarecrow
for as long as his health allowed.
Eventually, he went back to his native Greece.
The couple divorced, amicably, says Rebecca,
and they sold the store.
And then, sadly, George passed away.
♪♪
-He was the most radical guy I ever knew.
-We had various people who wanted it,
and then we had two people who came in who were film buffs.
They were also Microsoft employees,
and they had the money to buy it.
We lucked out. Totally lucked out.
We could have -- it could have been a disaster.
♪♪
-Speaking of disasters, besides Scarecrow,
have you seen many video stores around lately
that still rent video tapes?
-Rewind!
[ Beep ]
-Now we keep all the video tapes back here.
They take up a lot of space.
We built these custom roller shelves to keep them organized.
-Or have you seen any video stores, period?
Thanks to passionate staff and customers,
Scarecrow Video has found a way to survive.
Thrive even.
[ Computer beeps ]
-You know, I think
that Scarecrow is a really interesting jewel
in Seattle's crown.
I mean, it's the biggest video store on planet Earth
in this city that's become so sort of tech
and convenience-oriented.
It sort of stands as a piece of that DIY spirit
that Seattle is built on.
-Part of that DIY spirit
means radically shifting how Scarecrow does business.
In fact, they're technically no longer
even considered a business.
-On this live stream fundraiser,
we are going to attempt to raise $30,000.
-While we're a nonprofit, we're only nonprofit in 2014,
so that's a big part of it.
That allows us to fundraise,
some memberships, things like that.
We started our Rent by Mail program
as a pilot program just before COVID,
and then when COVID struck,
that kept us alive during the lockdown.
-That's awesome, man.
-Rebecca hasn't been officially part of Scarecrow for decades,
but she still comes back every now and then,
which is good
because she knows some of the best stories about the place.
-We used to tease that this whole wing right here
was funded by Kurt Cobain and his late fees.
-But you don't have to be a rock star
or a famous film critic to appreciate
and be welcomed by Scarecrow Video.
There's something here for everyone.
♪♪
-To me right now, it's overwhelming
because, I mean, I'm walking down the aisles
and it's so much more than I remember,
and it's like, I could spend hours in here.
I just don't even know where to start.
-But I didn't scare ya?
-Scarecrows don't bring the crows.
They chase them away.
-Even though George is gone
and the video rental business has disappeared
from nearly everywhere else,
people keep coming back to Scarecrow
to celebrate George's legacy
and to rent some pretty great movies, too.
♪♪
-That's a wrap.
♪♪
Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at 7 on the Seattle Channel,
or find us anytime online at SeattleChannel.org.
♪♪