When did the concept of video rentals first come into being, and what was the first video rental store called?
From this page:
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In December 1977, a Los Angeles entrepreneur named George Atkinson opened the first video rental store, The Video Station. A year later, the store was so popular that Atkinson began to sell franchises.
Y’all are five years too late. The first home videocassette player was the AVCO Cartrivision system, introduced in June 1972, three years before Betamax and four years before VHS.
The Cartrivision VCR cost $700 ($3,000 in today’s dollars!), and was available from Sears, Macy’s, Montgomery Ward, and other department stores. A blank one-hour tape cost $24 ($102 today). Rentals of Hollywood movies on videocassette, from your Cartrivision retailer via Cartrivision’s Cartridge Rental Network, cost $3-$7 ($13-$30), and they could only be watched once per rental, since the consumer was not able to rewind the cartridges.
Cartrivision VCRs went off the market only thirteen months later in July 1973.
Some of the features that were available for rent from Cartrivision in 1972-73: Exodus, Casablanca, It Happened One Night, Red River, I Am Curious (Yellow), and Dr. Strangelove.