On March 14, 2018, Toys R Us announced that it would be closing the bulk of its retail locations. This wasn't shocking. In 2017 they had filed for bankruptcy and had already announced the closure of multiple stores in January of 2018. With the closure coming, the company will finally be put to rest after 65 years of bringing toys to the world.
For me, Toys R Us’s demise is bittersweet. I enjoyed my childhood trips there, but never cared for them as an adult. There were a part of the “Big 6” video game retailers, but always felt like the one who cared the least for video games. Just a few days after they announced their closure, I decided to to make one last trip to the store. It would be a final pilgrimage to the holy land of toys.
Growing up in rural Kentucky was never easy for a kid who always wanted the latest and greatest toys. Taking the 15 minute journey into town offered only a few options in the early 2000’s. There was K-Mart, another relic of a forgotten era. The toy selection there was never groundbreaking. I vaguely recall purchasing Pokemon cards there and picking up the occasional toy. By the time I became interested in video games, K-mart was already dead by most accounts. It was never a stop in my game collecting hunts. The other option was Wal-Mart, the goliath that ate every other retailer in its path. Wal-mart served as the hub for everything in our town, but beyond the parkway was another choice.
The Toys R Us from my childhood curtsy of Google Maps.
If you took the 45 minute trip west, you would arrive in Bowling Green, KY, one of the largest cities in the state. Trips to the city were events growing up. Spending the entire day in the city wasn't unheard of. To a kid, it would normally be a nightmare. Forty five minutes equated to at least two episodes of television in my young mind, and this was before we had a fancy tv in our car to play old VHS tapes and plug-n-play consoles. The fruits of our labor were never immediately rewarded either. Food and shopping for clothes often took priority over visiting the toy store. But my siblings and I knew that the toy store visit would happen. And the biggest toy store in the city was Toys R Us.
Taking the second exit to the city was our usual route. Perhaps it was just how my parents always drove, but that exit was the closest to Toys R Us. It was a sprawling toy store. It had its own parking lot and no other major retail locations were near it. On top of the building rested the iconic mascot of Toys R Us, Geoffrey the Giraffe. Geoffrey was as much a household name to us as Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny. Seeing that smiling giraffe meant that new toys were in their way and we rarely could contain our excitement.
My final trip to Toys R Us was less glorious than those of my childhood. On our way to pick up some dinner, I asked my wife if we could stop by and see if the liquidation had started. She reluctantly agreed in hopes of finding something marked to lower prices. We worked our way through the traffic before arriving at the shopping center our local Toys R Us was located at. Gone is the Geoffrey of my childhood. In his place is an imposter. A simplified version takes his place; one that looks less like a mascot for a retailer and more of a Saturday morning cartoon character. The store is nestled in between a best buy and an ulta beauty store. It's fitting as my wife and I have frequented both locations next to it over the years. We found a decent parking spot as I noticed the parking lot was fuller than normal. Chances are they were looking for cheap toys for their kids or maybe they were going to resell them. We made our way inside. It wasn't a symphony of excitement as we entered. Rather, it was a cold reminder of how far the company had fallen in recent years.
The classic Toys R Us commercial from 1982.
As a kid, going into Toys R Us was systematic overload. My young brain couldn't fathom the amount of toys in the store. While the layout always changed, some areas were mainstays. To your right upon entering was the “kids r us" section. I always found the area misleading as it contained only clothes for babies and children. No kid in their right mind would enjoy picking out clothes when brightly colored pieces of plastic laid about next to it. To the far left of the store was the video games section. Growing up, Toys R Us was the outlier in how it's games were displayed. Brandishing the shelves weren't boxes of joy, but rather print outs of the cover art with tickets below them. You took a ticket to the register and an employee would run to the magically overstock area to retrieve whatever you wanted. I recall the bikes and other large toys being set up in a similar way. One thing Toys R Us had were game kiosks. I remember playing Nintendo Gamecube and PlayStation 2 demos on them, trying to find a new game to take home.
To the back of the store were the aforementioned bicycles and powered vehicles that we could never afford. Next to them were action figures and legos, both of which I would look at even into my preteens. Towards the front were the trading cards. I would purchase thousands of these cards over the years. For a brief period of time, Toys R Us was heaven on earth.
Teenage me riding a children's bike in our local Toys R Us sometime in late 2010.
Walking into Toys R Us as an adult was never as joyous. It usually involved ducking in and out as quickly as possible. Returning to the store for one final time was different. I took my time going through the toys that might interest me. I knew they would mostly just be shelf decorations at best and dog toys at worst, but I couldn't help it. I wanted to see what was there. Unfortunately, none of the stock had been marked down yet so I began to make my way towards the back of the store. In years past, Toys R Us had become the hot spot for “toys to life" figures. It only made sense. They functioned as figures as well as in game items for players. They were incredibly popular with children, something I had learned selling video games and cell phones over the years. Toys R Us had the largest selection in town. Entire aisles were devoted to Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Nintendo’s Amiibo and Lego Dimensions. Walking to the back only reminded me that those days were gone. Toys to Life products, much like Toys R Us, were out of style. Bad business practices had shut them down. What few products were left were discounted so much that people didn't even care anymore. What was normally considered a clearance price was seen as a simple tax to rid the store of its inventory.
It was odd to see the store like this. Years before, when the aisles were full, a trip to Toys R Us meant something as someone in the early 20s. I would go into it to nab the latest exclusive amiibo or, in the darker days of collecting, hoping they actually had some in stock. More often than not, a trip to Toys R Us was to fix an online order that had been messed up. Toys R Us never tried to be competitive with their online shop so I rarely used it. In the occasions that I did, there was a good chance one of the items I ordered wouldn't be there or was replaced by something completely different. While the in-store customer service was always friendly, it only added to what was seen as the company’s biggest problem: they were behind the times. Even their pricing was higher than average leading to the term “toys r us tax" being coined.
Of course, I never knew Toys R Us was more expensive growing up. I feel like many didn't. The advent of online shopping wasn't around for my family in the 2000’s. It wouldn't be until High School that my family would even purchase items online. However, we always knew what was going to be the hot toy of the season. How exactly? Simple. We had the toys r us winter catalog.
The cover to one of the later Toys R Us Winter Catalogs
Arriving in the mail in the fall months, the Toys R Us winter catalog was a massive ad featuring the best new toys coming out. My siblings and I always became ecstatic when it arrived as we would spend an entire evening window shopping with it. The catalog was an important tool for my parents. Armed with colored markers, my siblings and I would circle the items we wanted for Christmas. This would sometimes be venture to Toys R Us as well to pick out various items. It was the best way for us to find new products during the days before we had the internet at home. While we always filled our lists with more items than our parents could ever reasonable afford, the excitement surrounding the winter catalog was almost a gift on its own.
Toys R Us still sends out it's catalog. Sometimes I jokingly ask my parents if they want me to circle the new games I want in it. The joy I once had at Toys R Us is largely gone now. Shopping around the store lead me to one of the only points of interest I could find, a large selection of Funko’s Pop Vinyl figures. At first I just glanced at them. I rarely purchased the figures in stores since they were cheaper online. After awhile my wife ran off to the baby section, looking for items for a child who won't even exist for a few years. I walked back towards the pops and began to browse. I noticed a few that I had been after for awhile. I piled them up with the intention of purchasing just one. It was my final trip after all.
Digging through the toys brought me back to my childhood. I wasn't desperately trying to find one last item I needed. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I was searching for something new and interesting. I finally got a small group of figures together before my wife showed back up. She gave me a “are you serious” look as I carried a few over to a price scanner. I picked the ones I wanted and we made our way to the checkout. Along the way she showed me some items she liked notably q picture frame of a dog and a baby. As I looked around for one last time she told me to look around for anything she might want if I come back once they start liquidating the product.
We approached the check out and noticed the sad state of employees there, or rather, the lack of. They scrambled at the return center by handling both customers and phone calls. Overhearing a conversation, I could hear the employee explaining to the person on the line that they don't know when the store is closing or what will be on sale. They were still in the dark. I made my purchase and quickly left the store noticing a line form behind me. It was the probably the most people I had ever seen in that Toys R Us.
My final purchase from Toys R Us. The bag and receipt are already gone as I threw them away before writing this piece.
We made our way home and I sat my bag of toys and video game collectables in the floor. In my younger days I wouldn't have even made it out of the store before tearing into the packaging. It wouldn't be until after dinner that I began to put up my purchase. A few items made their way into my shelves with the rest being placed in my closet for future displays. I still didn't feel sad that Toys R Us was closing, not even now as I write this. Despite having wonderful memories of the store growing up, my only thoughts of sadness are attributed to the 30,000+ employees that Toys R Us will soon lay off. It wasn't shocking to see the store close. Toys R Us was no longer a leading business in the toy or video game market. Their death was a mercy killing that finally put the old giraffe to rest.
I'll never take my future kids to Toys R Us. It's an experience I'll never be able to share with them. They'll probably dread going into retail stores. Instead they'll become excited when they hear the buzzing of the Amazon drone dropping off their new toys. Toys R Us will simply be a piece of nostalgia for me and a page in history for future generations of kids.
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