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Had time to kill the last couple of days, so I've been checking out a couple of new toy stores in Calgary (new to me anyways). I keep hoping I'll hit the motherload and find a little store somewhere that carries a variety of cool stuff. For example, when I was a wee little fellar, there used to be a drug store beside the grocery store we went too. That place not only carried comics and candy galore, but the owner must have been a toy nut, because they had almost everything Marx and Corgi made at the time on the shelves.
Alas, these days, all the independant toy shops all carry "educational" toys mostly (which I wouldnt have touched with a ten foot pole as a kid) with nothing mainstream in site. Some hobby shops carry the collector aimed stuff, but its got a Rolls Royce price tag on it. Other than that, its the big retailers or TRU for toys. No more little shops, not even smaller chains in the malls like Tops in Toys or Toys and Wheels.....arrgh!
Now, in Canada anyways, its the big three. Wal-Mart and Zellers toy departments always look like Genghis Khan and his hordes just rode through and torched them. And TRU always seems to have the same items on the pegs, no matter how much you space out your visits.
How cool would it be to casually wander into a toy section and find a rack of new Johnny West figures almost smiling back at you? To see EMCE Trek figures on the pegs, glistening in the bright store lights....hanging right beside some 12" GI JOE figures with life like hair and kung fu grip.
In writing this post, I'm not sure if I'm complaining about the state of toys and toy retailers as we know them today, or about the nostalgia of walking into a toy store and being totally captivated and amazed by whatever you see on the shelves? Whatever...I miss the good old days.
Alas, these days, all the independant toy shops all carry "educational" toys mostly (which I wouldnt have touched with a ten foot pole as a kid) with nothing mainstream in site. Some hobby shops carry the collector aimed stuff, but its got a Rolls Royce price tag on it. Other than that, its the big retailers or TRU for toys. No more little shops, not even smaller chains in the malls like Tops in Toys or Toys and Wheels.....arrgh!
Now, in Canada anyways, its the big three. Wal-Mart and Zellers toy departments always look like Genghis Khan and his hordes just rode through and torched them. And TRU always seems to have the same items on the pegs, no matter how much you space out your visits.
How cool would it be to casually wander into a toy section and find a rack of new Johnny West figures almost smiling back at you? To see EMCE Trek figures on the pegs, glistening in the bright store lights....hanging right beside some 12" GI JOE figures with life like hair and kung fu grip.
In writing this post, I'm not sure if I'm complaining about the state of toys and toy retailers as we know them today, or about the nostalgia of walking into a toy store and being totally captivated and amazed by whatever you see on the shelves? Whatever...I miss the good old days.
And I wish EMCEs were more mainstream than just comic book stores, specialty catalogs, and online. What I want for Xmas is for kids to walk into Walmart, K-Mart or whatever MART, look up and see the EMCEs Star Trek, POTA and the Enterprise playset and get that same feeling of awe that we did. (yeah I know, dream on, right.) :eyeroll: Or for the 6 yr. old boy I babysit for, to walk into a toy store and find all the classic Mego Batman guys right there at his little fingertips. 
-Tallahassee 
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