I didn’t realize how far back Eyebeam goes! But while puzzling over this comic in its November 2023 recycle appearance, it seemed that finding the date of original publication might help. In 1988 simultaneous streaming release was not yet a standard practice ; heck, they didn’t have streaming at all. Distribution for private home viewing was, as shown, mostly tape rentals ; and yes, tape, as DVDs weren’t around until the mid 90s!
And is that what the joke is? That somehow Joe’s Rentals has this title as tape even though it’s just now opening at the theater? Or is it funny-surprising that all these people prefer to see it at the theater rather than in the comforts of home? Or even — but now we’re working too hard — or even that the ice cream shop is a clue that they’re having hot weather, and that gives an answer to “why is everybody going to the movie theater?” : that they are seeking air conditioning?
Comics I Don't Understand 
I tried to imagine the strip as showing a time progression somehow, where the people in the back had been waiting so long to get into the theater that the movie had been released on video already. But I’m not sure that’s what’s being gone for.
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Powers has a good idea; then Hurt might have wanted to put increasingly longer beards on the people in the back. Another idea would be to add a porn video store on that strip, with a pun-related porn title being advertised.
As-is, it’s just an anachronistic strip.
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In some countries with lax copyright laws, you might see DVD’s of a first-run movie for sale outside the theater on the theatrical premiere date.
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@padraig, and for a while they were notoriously low quality as they came from someone planted in a movie theater audience recording it off the screen.
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@ mitch (4) – But that is exactly what is going on in this strip! Even before digital recording devices made in-theater piracy cheap and easy, there were similar operations happening with video cameras recording to VHS tape.
P.S. The ice cream shop in between is just a decorative comment: the rental place has “scooped” the theater. The weather wasn’t hot, not even in the middle of Texas (Hurt was writing in Austin): this comic was published in March, in which the average highs run about 73F (23C), but was most likely written in February, when it would have been even cooler.
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In addition to cam copy VHS rentals already showing up at a shady rental store, I do have a vague memory of “The Pirate Movie” (Pirates of Penzance) being released simultaneously on network TV and in theaters in the early 80s. So a shady rental place might have had taped-off-TV copies available during the brief time the movie was in theaters (pretty sure the gimmick backfired and it flopped at the box office).
I agree with most of the theories above, but have one possible addition: commentary on remakes, that they come so close together that the remade Deadly Murder is just now in theaters at the same time as the previous Deadly Murder is released on video.
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Joe’s already has Deadly Murder on videocasette as a new arrival whereas the film is just opening at the theater. Joe’s has scooped the theater. Hmmm, think I’ll grab some ice cream.
Wife and I used to rent movies at a record store next to a local restaurant/bar. Whenever we’d rent a movie we’d usually duck into the bar for a quick refreshment before heading home to watch the movie.
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There was a Seinfeld episode where Kramer got involved with with camcording a popular new movie, but somehow the ending was replaced with Elaine’s awkward dancing.
PS: I am still amazed when people claim it was “a show about nothing”. It featured more contrived plots than almost any.
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Although the video shop has the VHS, everyone knows it will be rubbish quality and so prefers to have the big-screen experience. Fifteen years or so ago I drove 45 minutes to Bristol to see The Red Shoes, a 1946 Powell & Pressburger film, on a big screen, even though it was showing on TV at exactly the same time.
(Of course, in the cartoon we don’t see the queue to get into the video rental place – maybe it is even longer, just off screen.)
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I seem to recall that the idea of Seinfeld as a “show about nothing” came from its creator, Larry David, so his opinion would have to be given a fair bit of weight.
But what he meant by it isn’t that the show had no plot. It’s that the characters never experience character growth; that the situations they get into hold no importance in the world; and that no lessons are ever learned.
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I think it was more the arc (right there) where they were trying to sell a show, which George said was a show about nothing.
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A show about nothing: https://youtu.be/CPPlSkQ1WEQ?si=juxTn1bcQ3B4O5-g
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@dvandom: It was the 1983 version of “The Pirates of Penzance” that went simultaneously to theaters and to pay-per-view TV, thus discouraging theaters from booking the film while not gathering enough pay-per-view sales to make up the difference.
There was also a 1982 film titled “The Pirate Movie,” which was loosely based on “The Pirates of Penzance,” but that one received a conventional theatrical release.
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1983 version of “The Pirates of Penzance”
I wondered if that was the one with Linda Ronstadt, which the internet confirmed when I inquired.
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