Everyone else is writing these
retrospectives, so far be it from me to not jump on the bandwagon. I
had a similar article planned for the future, but why not strike
while the iron's hot? This is my look back at “the world's biggest
toy store.”
As you probably know, Toys R Us
announced their closure of all US stores on March 15, and their
founder, Charles Lazarus, sadly passed days after the announcement.
Most people blame Amazon and the rise of online shopping, but Toys R
Us had many problems that led to this. They were a power keg that was
doomed to blow.
I remember the trouble started in the
late 90's. The company began switching hands. Our Scholastic Weekly
Readers in school (remember those?) reported that more customers were
beginning to go to other big box stores like Wal-Mart, because why go
shopping for toys when you can go shopping for toys, groceries, and
clothes at the same time? Toys R Us tried to compensate for this by
adding a small grocery section in some of their stores to draw in
families. Eventually, in 2003, they sold off their Kids R Us stores
(more on those in a minute) realizing they didn't exactly have the
kids clothing market cornered. They eventually devoted a large part
of their toy stores to their profitable Babies R Us line. This was a
good move business-wise, but kids like me were not happy that there
was suddenly less toy space available. Eventually, the buyout debts
from different investors became too much for the company to pay off.
Let's go back in time for a minute and
look at some happier times. Toys R Us may seem mostly obsolete in
today's age of online shopping, but they were a GIANT throughout over
half of the 20th century. A giant that seemed like it
would never fall. When I was a kid, there were several places you
could go for toys (all of which may eventually be discussed in more
depth with future articles): Kay Bee Toys and The Disney Store at the
mall, Media Play's large kids section, and the king of all toy
stores, Toys R Us. It was a rare treat to go there, because, despite
originally being promoted as “the children's bargain town,” my
parents found the place way too expensive.
My Local Toys R Us
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| This isn't my exact store, but this is what it looked like. |
In our store's early days, when I was very young, the roof somewhat resembled a castle tower with Geoffrey Giraffe's face perched up top. The colorful wooden tiles at the sides resembled a xylophone in my two year old mind, so I was always disappointed that they didn't sound like the instrument when I'd knock my fist against them.
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| Again, not my store, but it looked fairly similar. |
The store eventually changed a bit in the early 90's, foregoing its rainbow décor for white tiles. Red blue and green stripes made their way around the building.
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| It is nearly impossible to find decent Kids R Us photos. Here's one past its prime. |
Our Kids R Us location was on the other side of the building. It also had stripes of the same colors but with a lighter tone, and whereas the front windows of Toys R Us were rectangular, the ones for Kids R Us were shaped like a large oval.
Kids R Us
Let's talk about Kids R Us for a
second. For those not in the know, this was a store like Gymboree
that sold clothing for small children. The inside was like a living
Lisa Frank painting. It was small, but super colorful. Rainbow tiles
dotted the floor, and the walls were pure solid colors (which can partially be seen in the video below). Even the
clothing was bright reds and blues to the point where I'm not sure
the designers knew what was trendy and cool with the elementary
school students. See, this was Kids R Us's downfall, they didn't know
their market. Some kids shopped at The Gap or Kohl's or wherever
their parents bought them clothing at a young age, but no one at
school was talking about how cool it was to shop at Kids R Us. It was
the Steve Urkel of children's clothing stores.
Despite this, I still have some fond
memories of the place. I got a Nickelodeon T-shirt there back in
third grade. It featured characters like Stimpy and Tommy Pickles
along with logos from different shows such as Figure it Out and
KaBlam! My mom and I would mostly go there to shop for clothes
for my brother when he was baby. When the store was sold, it
initially became a Petco which I would go to to visit the rabbits
they had on display. It then became a pop up Halloween store before
its current state as a BargainMax.
90's Memories
In third grade, my family had just moved into a new house. I played with a lot
of Lego's back then, probably to deal with this major transition. It
helped me come in third place at my school's Lego building contest.
That year I made a Lego model, an entryway for a mini golf course
(at least, that's what it was in my mind) as well as my prize, a
coveted Geoffrey dollar. These were the modern equivalent to a gift
card, except they were way cooler since they were essentially play
money. I did some digging, and my dollar at the time would have
looked like this:
When my family when back to Toys R Us
to use the money, it was first time we had been there in a few years,
and the place had changed drastically. Gone was the white motif of
the entrance, and in its place was a brand new blue entrance with a
new logo. The entry lobby was outfitted with large windows. I always
felt that this entrance nailed what the store was about. It built
anticipation for the kid heaven on earth you were about to enter.
To my surprise, the entrance was not
the only thing different about the place: the entire indoor layout
had changed. Now there were tons of new toys and brand new
decorations to match. What struck me most of all were the larger than
life statues of Geoffrey and his family, some of which had animation!
I remember Geoffrey, Baby Gee stirring porridge in her high chair, and Geoffrey Junior
(or Senior?) flying down a slide. For years I thought I'd never find
any photogenic proof of this change. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I had
made it up this whole time, but no! A few days ago I found this
picture:
There they are, all of the giraffes I
remembered. They were positioned in different places in my store, but
this proves I didn't make any of this up. I also now remember that
giant Geoffrey face on the floor and those 90's “Jazz”-like
isle markers. This particular photo was around the same time period I
remember the design change happening. It was definitely taken in
1996, due to the fact that a display for Disney's Hunchback is
in the foreground (which gives this picture major bonus points in my
book). Also, I found a few pictures of our friend who has since gone
into the hands of collectors:
So, what did I end up buying with that
20 dollar Monopoly money bill? Well, I almost bought a few of those
handheld Tiger Electronics games (you know the ones), but I ended up
going with a playset of Pixar's newest movie at the time, A Bug's
Life. Now, that may seem kind of stupid in retrospect, but it was
pretty neat at the time. It was of P.T. Flea, the circus owner from
the movie. He's spit open, revealing a tiny circus set inside. This
was similar to the Mighty Max toys. These little playsets were pretty
popular. I remember Star Wars had some pretty cool ones of the Death
Star and Jabba's palace.
What made the store so amazing in my
young eyes was the sheer size of it all. The shelves at the time were
not nearly as high as they are now. Those shelves stretched to the
freaking ceiling, with boxes of inventory on very top. To a
youngling, it was intimidating to stare up at those things. Even the
movie section (which had become part of the Baby department when our
store closed) was quite a large corner that featured dozens of
titles, more than one would see at Kay Bee Toys or a similar mall
shop. I remember getting an Animaniacs VHS tape there and watching
the hell out of it. I eventually had the entire thing memorized, down
to every note of Richard Stone's score.
This article is far too big for one
entry. Next time, we'll discuss my trips to other Toys R Us
locations, including that mecca of a location in Times Square. I'll
also talk about my fond memories as a Toys R Us employee. You could
say I never outgrew the place.
As a fun bonus, here's a video I uploaded in the early
days of YouTube. When I say I grew up with these two commercials, I'm
being literal. They were on a tape of holiday specials I'd re-watch
every year.
The pictures of myself was taken by me. Thank Google
for the others.
