On another forum I visit I came across a fix for seeing old threads with Photobucket images that now have the images blocked. Some clever fellow developed a browser extension that manages to circumvent the Photobucket block. I tried it and it worked great. I used the Google Chrome browser extension which is here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobucket-embed-fix/naolkcpnnlofnnghnmfegnfnflicjjgj (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobucket-embed-fix/naolkcpnnlofnnghnmfegnfnflicjjgj)
Another fellow ported this to Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/photobucket-embedded-fix/ (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/photobucket-embedded-fix/)
I haven't tried the Firefox version, but reports indicate it works well too.
The images might not come up right away because you have that annoying blue and white blocking image stored in your browser cache. A couple of things I learned to do if that happens. While viewing the page, on Windows do a Ctrl+Shift+R or Ctrl+F5 to override the cache, or on a Mac do Cmd+Shift+R. Or just dump the browser cache.
Thanks brutha'!