K-Mart in the 70's

[brannon86]

Who here blew their allowance at K-Mart back in the day? I know I did. seems like every other Saturday, Mom and I would go, and I would either buy something, or scout out my next purchase when I had saved enough....Oh yeah....

[Marvelmania]

I imagine most every visit to K Mart I'd be standing in the toy aisles drooling over the Megos, GI Joe carded toys, Tracer and zebra guns and models! Good memories!

[MegoNinja]

Is there some thing wrong with me? How come every one remembers this sort of thing? I can't even remember what toy sections looked like when I was young. I think I can vaguely remember some He-man and ninja turtles but I could be imagining that. I have an excellent memory but for some unknown reason I can't remember any thing toy shop related.

[Sweep Secondhand]

K-Mart was definetly my go-to store in the 70's. Sure I like Toy King better but K-Mart was cheaper and that's the store my mom went to for EVERYTHING so I ended up at K-Mart 3-4 times a week and Toy King maybe once or twice a month. I remember boxed Adventure Team Joes there were about $4.00 back in the day. My allowance was $3-$5 so I had to spend it wisely. I bought a lot of Mego and LJN figures there as well. They were always on the first toy isle in my store facing the other merchandise - probably to discourage shoplifting. You had to be careful if the blister card was broken because someone may have stolen the accessories. After the little Star Wars figures came out, kids just stole the whole figure and left piles of empty packages on the bottom shelf! Those were the days!

[Delusional B]

Kmart was my "toy store" in the 70's, as well. In our town there really weren't many other places to buy toys. There was Kmart, Woolworths, Odegaards, Kresges, and a locally owned (I think) toy store in the mall called Clown Town. Clown Town always had cool stuff that was a bit more expensive than a typical dept. store. They had high-end Corgis, Don Post Star Wars masks, etc.

At any rate, Kmart was definitely the best place for toys. I remember picking up Megos there, Six Million Dollar Man stuff, and Star Wars figures. Always pushed for an Icee, as well.

[palitoy]

K-Mart was a rare experience for me as my folks lived kind of far from it. I got babysat at my grandparents store a great deal, which was in the same mall as Woolco, I could pretty much draw pictures of their toy section.

[toys2cool]

I wasn't around in the 70's,but I do remember the 80's,I remember buying my Gi joes and Willow figures at K-mart I was more of a Toys R Us and KB kid though

[nvmbrsdoom5]

As I'm getting older, my memories of this sort of thing are getting foggier, but I do have a few very clear memories of K-mart as a kid. It was the one store in the area that had awesome 25 cent kiddie rides out front, and I always would bug my mom or whomever I was with to let me ride them. I can remember it being a struggle getting them to let me do this sometimes, and now that I'm older I think, "It was only a friggin' quarter, and the ride lasted a whole sixty seconds!!! Was it really worth arguing with me over??" haha...
What I loved about going to K-Mart was the fact that I could find so many things of interest all in one place....lots of great action figures there, of course. I very clearly remember buying an ESB Tie Fighter Pilot there one time, and another time I remember buying some Eagle Force figures there. Plus at Halloween they'd have an amazing assortment of Ben Cooper and other costumes and masks. Also I was into stuff like KISS at a very early age, and I could always find something there like a KISS magazine or poster, etc. (I remember buying a black light poster there, too). And they had the small cafeteria section where I could get a hot dog and an ICEE drink, which I always looked forward to. Yeah really thinking about it now, I'd have to say that K-Mart, Sears, and Toys R Us were my top three stores to visit as a child.

One other thing I just recalled....when I would go down to Alabama with my family in the summer, we'd always wind up visiting the K-Mart in Huntsville and I would get pretty excited about it, because I knew my grandfather would definitely buy me some cool toys there. He used to bring that up to me pretty often for years after we had stopped going to AL. for vacations. I think he enjoyed our K-Mart trips and how happy it made me. I miss that.

[HardyGirl]

Growing up on the West Side of NYC in the 70s, I never even heard of K-Mart. There was a mom & pop toy store 2 blocks from my house. Since I only got a quarter a week, my allowance was mostly spent on candy, ice-cream, soda and chips, bubble gum cards and Bazooka. Occasionally I'd get something from that ole toy store; Finger Pops, Mickey Mouse ears, a baton for my baton group in school, jacks. And while it's true my dad would sometimes come home from work w/ surprises for me, most of my toys were acquired on birthdays or holidays. But I still loved walking home from church or day camp, stopping and staring into that big picture window display of the toy store, planning what I was gonna ask for next. Oh yeah!

But I guess the closest thing to K-Mart was Woolworth. I loved that place, especially at Christmas or Halloween. Decorations, Ben Cooper costumes, dolls and other toys, story records, candy. And let's not forget the lunch counter! When I got a little older, I used to go and look through the albums, 'cos they always had sales and overpressing stock.

[Flynne]

I am intimately familiar with the KMart toy section. For the better part of a decade my mother worked in and supervised the toy section at the KMart about a mile from our home. I spent many week's allowance there on Megos, Star Wars, Transformers, and GIJoes. As an adolescent it was one of my favorite places in the World.

One nice thing about Ben's book coming out was the opportunity to sit down with my Mother and revive her memories of Mego back in the day. When Mom saw all of the variants of Spider-Man it reminded her that over the course of a decade my parents bought me at least 6 different Spideys.

[Ranger 3]

I have very fond memories of Kmart as well. The Kmart I used to frequent in St. Petersburg, Florida in the 70s is still there. My K-memories are tied strongly to Star Wars toys; the local Kresge store was where I remember older items like Bionic stuff, Megos, etc.

One thing I will NEVER understand is how every Kmart I have ever been in smells the same. And its the same smell from the 70s too. How is that possible?

Hey Flynne- maybe you mom knows about the secret Kmart scent generators issued to each store... perhaps it releases some sort of mind-altering chemical that stimulates the shopping center in the brain.

Mark

[EmergencyIan]

I was very familiar with K-Mart as a child too, and loved it! I still love the memories of it and being there with my grandparents. I was most familiar with the toy department (of course) and also with the cafeteria!

Most of my Mego's were purchased at K-Mart. I remember looking them over intently. Also, remember seeing Kresge's. I even got lost in K-Mart once because I was staring at Doc McCoy. Crying and lost, I ended up at the service desk with the ladies there paging, "Will Ian's grandpa come to the service desk?"


- Ian

[Marvelmania]

Not to get off track too much but but the K Mart we went to had a small restaurant/cafeteria area in it. As a kid I loved to eat there. Buying some toys, eating a cheeseburger. Back then it didn't get any better!

[brannon86]

K-Mart

Cool, thanks for the input guys/gals. I see that alot of you haunted K-Mart as well back then. I got most of my toys thereas well, and also school supplies every year, and speaking of Ben Cooper Halloween costumes, I got mine there. K-Mart had a great selection. I remember seeing 2-3 isles full of those boxed costumes that we all remember and loved so well. Talk about being hot under those rough plastic mask, Ha. Also, do you guys remember the awesome selection of metal lunch boxes K-Mart had. Just like the Ben -Cooper costumes, K-Mart had isles filled with them.I think they had a lunch box for every primetime tv show and Saturday morning tv show that was out back then. I also rememer the Icee machine, the popcorn, pretzels, and the smells, oh yeah, the special smells. I remember my grandparents coming to visit every once in a while(the lived about 100 miles from me) and everytime, we had to go to K-Mart when they came. They probably came twice a month, so. Also, I lived about 5 minutes away from K-Mart back then. Oh, what great memories. Makes me sad to remember, but it also gives me a great warm feeling to remember those times....

[Bionic Joe]

My parents were not big K-MART shoppers so i have few memories of them, But i do recall getting my Mike Power the atomic man there