Thanks to John Oliver, a lone Blockbuster video in Alaska is displaying Russell Crowe's jockstrap

John Oliver donated Russell Crowe&#039;s jockstrap to Blockbuster

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube, Last Week Tonight/Twitter, AP)

last updated 18 September 2018

The Blockbuster video in Anchorage, Alaska, unveiled its display of Russell Crowe memorabilia on Wednesday, including the crown jewel of the collection, the leather jockstrap Crowe wore in 2005's Cinderella Man. "I tell you, we're going to get a lot of traffic, is what I'm expecting," Kevin Daymude, general manager of Blockbuster Alaska, tells The Associated Press, explaining that the Crowe collection has been the buzz of Alaska for two weeks. Almost every Blockbuster store shut down after Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and Daymude is trying to keep his holdout alive in the face of Netflix and other video streaming services.

Anchorage's Blockbuster got Crowe's movie costumes from comedian John Oliver, whose HBO show Last Week Tonight won them in Crowe's "divorce auction" and donated them as a way of supporting the store. Oliver giddily announced the gifts on his show two weeks ago.

Daymude said that if he could get ahold of Crowe, he'd like to send him a photo and thank him. And Oliver? "I don't know if he's ever seen the movies, but I figure we can send him the movies and he can watch them." Or maybe he could just send a thank you card.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.