Toys'R'Us :-(

[hobub]

Yep I remember Kresges, Sears and even when Children’s Palace closed doors, I never had a TRU growing up. But I have spent a lot of time over the past 25 years shopping there for three boys now aged 27, 21 and 13.

I am sure they have some fond childhood memories shopping the TRU aisles. I don’t but I remember Megos, Stretch Armstrong, Evel Knievel, Matchbox and Hotwheels. Mego went bankrupt and they are more popular than ever online at least. They were responsible for 17-20% of toy sales. There will be life after Toys R Us.

[EmergencyIan]

^ K-Mart is where I got most all of my WGSH Megos, in the 70s. Now, the other Mego lines, I got everywhere. In the late 70's, I got my Mego Comic Action, Pocket and Die Cast heroes at the local toy store. They had tons of them. May have also got some Pocket Heroes at a store called Ayr-Way, which was a discount store like K-Mart or Target (it became a Target in 1980).

- Ian

[Spawn67]

Yea I'm bummed about toys r us closing but the store hasn't been the same for me for over 20 years.
When I was a kid in the late 70's we had a store in Baltimore called Toytown which was a Lionel store and that place was massive and had everything (I really wish more than anything someone took pictures of that store) .We also had toys r us which was right up the street and it's still there (Towson) but looks absolutely nothing like it did when I was a kid. Toytown closed in about 82 and that toys r us took over everything but our many local malls had kae bee and other smaller stores. I spent many years going there and can remember as if it was today going there in its heyday. A sad day but one we all saw coming.
By the way Dan Bell who does the dead mall series is from my home town and grew up going to many sadly gone malls that I did. I wish someone had taken pics of back in the 80s which who thought back then that something simple as a picture of stores would be considered treasures today.

[cjefferys]

MGA is trying to rally fellow toymakers in a last ditch attempt to save Toys R Us.

MGA CEO Isaac Larian "If there is no Toys “R” Us, I don’t think there is a toy business,”

The 82 TRU stores in Canada are still ok (struggling but still solvent) and now there's news that MGA (maker of Bratz) is negotiating to buy those stores. Interesting.

[J.B.]

All my toys came from either Sears, K-Mart, Montgomery Wards or this pricey toy store called ToyVille; nothing from Toys r Us. Something about that shifty giraffe just didn't sit well with me.

[Teemu]

Yeah, Canada is saved (for now) but the USA stores are done...Liquidation is suppose to start immediately (possibly starting next week) and go for about 8 weeks

[powersthatbe]

I also miss Gold Circle,Service Merchandise and Hills.I think I got most of my toys in the 80s at hills and service merchandise always had a great selection especially Star Wars.

[Hector]

I got most of my Megos at Gemco.

[cjefferys]

As far as I know the TRUs in Japan are still ok too (hell, Japan is the only place in the world where Tower Records still survives, while retail stores are dying here, they are still thriving over there).

[spockoda]

I have had periods of mourning when some stores, such as Kay Bee and Hastings, went under so to me TRU possibly going under completely is just another sad deal going down but these stores can't compete with the internet.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Hills was where the toys were. That was the "out of town" retail chain I have the fondest memories of, partially because I saw Spider-Man fight the Green Goblin there in the greatest store appearance EVER.

Chris

[hedrap]

^I got a Hills story.

Stopped in one morning on a whim and found a carded BTAS Penguin just hanging on the peg. Pengy was considered the hardest of the BTAS to find from the line's inception and this...'98? You could tell by the slight bow to the card it was sitting in a smushed box for about five years.

[jimbutsu]

I asked my boss during a team meeting today how much bereavement time I was going to get for Toys R Us. True story.

[MRP]

I didn't go to my first Toys R Us until the summer before 8th grade (1982) and at that time I had just moved back to CT and had had to get rid of all my toys before the move, so wasn't really buying toys. I was looking for (and found) D&D stuff there, and bought my first boxed set of Grenadier miniatures and the Expert Set with birthday money. It was over a year before I went in again and they had no D&D stuff that time, so I didn't go to another for quite a few years.

As a kid, I rarely knew where the toys came form, as I only usually got new toys as birthday or Christmas gifts. On the rare occasions I got them outside of that, it was usually at a department store like Zayre's, Bradlees, or Caldor. My mother did work one Christmas as a seasonal hire at Child World (1978 or 1979 I think as I remember getting a bunch of the Battlestar Galactica ships from Child World that Christmas, and she spent the next Christmas working on the electronics factory for Milton Bradley up in Springfield, Ma because that was the year I got Starbird and Simon for Christmas).

The only time I frequented Toys R Us a lot was in the 90s when the Toy Biz Marvel stuff hit, and I hit Kay Bee more often looking for them because it was closer and the mall I worked in at the time had a Kay Bee, so I often went in on my lunch hour to see what they had. The TRU was down the road (a divided highway) from the mall in the opposite direction I went home in, so I didn't go there as often. Once I stopped buying the Toy Biz Marvel stuff, I had stopped buying toys altogether, and I didn't have a reason to go into a toy store for almost 20 years. It wasn't until a few years back that I started picking up toys again, and I was severely disappointed in the TRU out here when I went into it the first time, and have only gone a handful of times in the ensuing years. So I never really has much of an attachment to TRU, but I am sorry to see the last ubiquitous toy store go out.

-M

[rf-harris]

Thank You for all the lovely memories throughout our childhood.