What did you remember from Toys 'Я' Us?

[Apaul27]

Toys 'Я' Us is dead, long live the greatest toy store in the USA

 

On June 29, 2018, Toys 'Я' Us has finally shut it's doors for good. I dedicated to make this topic for this, and we won't forget this great toy store, and we might never see future generations of Toys 'Я' Us kids.

 

So, what did you remember at Toys 'Я' Us? For me, I've my Wii U Zombi U Bundle, and Lego City Undercover for my birthday.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I was confused at first, then ambivalent toward the end about TRU closing. It was my favorite toy store as a kid.

As for what I remember from TRU:

Spoiler

Cost about twenty dollars to get these three.

In the background of the image, you can just see some Skylanders, which TRU sold, but by the time I got into Skylanders, they didn't sell the ones I wanted, so the ones visible here were bought online.

I also painted them because I wanted to customize them.

I liked to go there with my friend back home in Alabama to just walk around and hang out, though, so that's what I remember best.

[Kaido]

It's dead . Not big surprise.

[Gez]

Not being an American, I don't care.

 

It's important to note, however, that the company was profitable. It didn't die because it was no longer making money, it died because it's been sucked dry by vulture capitalists. Bain Capital is a serial company killer, one of many.

[geo]

I always enjoyed Toys R Us. In my adult years, I realized it was laughably expensive compared to anywhere else. A lot of parents I know bluntly told me Toys R Us is a Christmas store, you go there once a year for everything, but don't dare go there off season. A few mentioned how all their deals mean you end up spending more money and that's what they did, they had too much stock so they'd try to do the buy 1, get 50% off the next one, but the products are all like 25% more expensive than other stores. They're right about the Christmas store aspect. For a month, the parking lot is so full that I've had to park in a different lot and run across a 4 lane road full of Christmas traffic to get to the store, because I'm someone that doesn't want to circle around for another 5 - 10 minutes waiting for someone to leave. In the non Christmas season there's barely anyone in the lot.

 

My local Toys R Us had an abundance of Lego... like every toy store and gift shop and book store. My local Toys R Us also went for the Babies R Us combo about 10 years ago. Since then, the Babies R Us consumed half the store. I assume because they make more selling cribs than selling toys.

 

While I'm here kicking my local Toys R Us in the groin, their parking lot was paved like 25 years ago. It has not aged well. Its perhaps the most ghetto and ruined parking lo of a business that's active. Lots of pot holes and entire missing sections. There are barely any lines marking parking spaces. The parking stones at the edge of the lot are all destroyed or crushed. There's grass growing through the cracks at the furthest end away from the building.

 

About a decade ago they remade the front half of the store to ensure once you're inside, you have to walk around the entire store to get out. The entrance was on the right, the exit was on the left at the other end of the store, rather than both sections being entrances and exits. So the one time I went to return something in the front. I had to walk all the way around the interior to get back out. Why didn't I just go out the front door that I came in? The staff first yelled at me and when I thought "fuck this" an employee came running at me to grab me to not exit out the entrance. Wow... That pissed me off pretty good. Maybe there was a lion outside and they were trying to save my life... or maybe their boss told people the flow of traffic goes through the store, not right back out.

 

It also had some weird employees over the past 25+ years. I was with a friend, an employee asked me for my phone number, I assume it was to check my credit card or something. I flat out said no. She got insulted and said "when a cute girl like me asks for your number, you better give it." My friend laughed and told me I think she was asking for credit card reasons. Well other clerks ask for a zip code or ID.

 

Another weird employee story. I went with my friend to return some giant squirt gun. He told the employee, "I'm returning this, because my brother doesn't like it." She looked at me and asked well what didn't you like about it? My friend and I look nothing alike. It was a joke. A bad joke. She found it hysterical and had to compose herself from the laughter.

 

A third employee, when I asked hey where is this thing. He laughed and said he'd like to help me, but he's in trouble with his boss and was told to stay where he was. ... uh well thanks for the honesty. He didn't tell me the location. He didn't tell me to ask another clerk. He didn't page someone to come help me.

 

I liked Toys R Us... but cheers to my disaster of a store.

 

My first local Toys R Us, that was closed like 15 - 20 years ago had for video games what I call a trap room. It was its own room in a giant store. They had plastic walls with one entrance that had its own sliding door and shoplifting detection. I assume this was in case anyone were to steal a game... but here's the thing, they quickly went away from having games out in the open or even in glass cases. They had tickets. You pick a ticket, bring it to the register, they go to the back and find the game.

 

My current local Toys R Us when it first started had its video game section in the middle of the store. It was the same deal, you take a ticket and then bring it to not the front, but an actual video game department. So basically, they had video games outside of the video game department. The actual department had walls full of games behind a counter manned by one or two people.

 

Both Toys R Us and Sears were the two stores willing to order something if they didn't have it... so those tickets I mentioned, they didn't always have the games on premises and they'd have to order it. Well why have 5 tickets then?

 

Now all these places just have games behind glass cases.

Edited July 1, 2018 by geo

[MrGlide]

Don't care that the store died, it was an outdated business model I don't use. I do remember getting my gameboy color there when I was younger.

[Mr. Freeze]

The best memory I have from Toys R Us is playing a Goldeneye 007 demo before it released. I still remember me and my DD44 deathmatching in Archives. 

[seed]

 

2 hours ago, Gez said:

Not being an American, I don't care.

 

Basically.

[StalkerZHS]

THE LEGO AISLE

 

And 2-3 years after that, the games aisle.

 

Also never really getting to go there often, even as a kid

[Chow Yun Thin]

I remember the cheesy jingles about being a Toys R Us kid and grabbing paper slips from the videogame aisle to bring to the cashier and the pickup area next to the exit. That's where I got my NES and N64, and any time I got a new videogame from there, I'd spend the car ride home reading through the manual in anticipation of playing the game.

 

The Toys R Us that I went to was also a few blocks from a Chuck E. Cheese, so my family and I would go there sometimes. This one had an arcade that somehow played Nintendo games and that was where I first played Super Mario Bros. It also had an animatronic puppet band that made me feel uneasy when they started playing songs whenever someone walked by it. I'm certain that's what Five Nights at Freddy's was inspired by, though I don't care for the games or fandom.

 

Yeah I'm a bit saddened by the closure of Toys R Us, but in all honesty I haven't visited one in about 10 years, maybe longer. I'd rather remember them fondly from my youth.

[Liberation]

I probably only went a few times when I was kid, the local toy r us closed a year or more ago.

 

Remember the jingly from the advert more than I remember the store, won't be missing that. 

[[McD] James]

I remember buying Mortal Kombat 1 for the SNES for $10 non-used, which was an amazing deal at the time. I also remember picking out Bart Simpson's Cupcake Crisis as a birthday present. It's a kuso LCD game, but it's worth a pretty penny now for its collectibility. I still have it.

 

This cheesy commercial makes me smile.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Ajora

[The Nate]

It's where I got my second Woody.

[Barry Burton]

We were too poor for that store. That's all I remember lol.

[notjimmyboigreez]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

Not being an American, I don't care.

 

It's important to note, however, that the company was profitable. It didn't die because it was no longer making money, it died because it's been sucked dry by vulture capitalists. Bain Capital is a serial company killer, one of many.

 

big in the UK as well 

[Gez]

14 hours ago, Jim Greezy said:

big in the UK as well 

I'm not British either.

 

The closest equivalent to TRU in my country would be something that is actually a retailers' cooperative rather than a single corporation. Each individual shop is independent, they just pool their resources together for marketing and bulk ordering. So it still exists and isn't going to suffer the same fate as TRU.

[chungy]

It used to be kind of cool when I was a kid. The introduction of video games to the stores was weird and made them lose their appeal to me, but maybe I was already outgrowing the store anyway :P

 

With Amazon I can't really be shocked that this one is closed down. Especially with, apparently, the high prices they had.

[GamingMarine]

I just remember getting a ton of shit when I was younger, and I remember being so needy.

 

Note that I was born back in 2003, so the fact that Toys 'R' Us' bankruptcy had been happening my entire life without me knowing about it is a real shame, IMO.

[Impie]

[Gez]

6 hours ago, chungy said:

With Amazon I can't really be shocked that this one is closed down. Especially with, apparently, the high prices they had.

Again, it's not their business model that killed them. It's not the competition of online ordering that killed them. The stores were still making a profit.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/toys-r-us-closing-blame/

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/what-really-killed-toys-r-us-and-iheart-media-cm935247

 

Listen people, here is how you win at capitalism.

• Step 1: borrow a fucking shitton of money
• Step 2: with that borrowed money, buy a company that turns a tidy profit
• Step 3: transfer your debt (all the money you've borrowed) to the company you've bought. So now the company is indebted for selling to you.
• Step 4: suck all the money you can from the company's assets as it is slowly strangled to death from the debt you've saddled it with
• Goto step 1

See? Child's play and foolproof! All you need is to have the kind of connections that let you borrow a fucking shitton of money, and then you too can get ever richer from destroying the economy.

[Octavarium]

The more important question is how did you type the backwards R

 

...a letter in a different language subbed in? Perhaps Cyrillic?

 

Anyway, never been there so eh

[insertwackynamehere]

If toys r us is still profitable then there should be people swooping in to buy them at steep discount regardless of what weird bankruptcy machinations are at work.

[valkiriforce]

Two of my all-time favorite games were bought at a Toys R Us in the 90's - Contra III and Doom II. Sad to see them close their doors for good.

[notjimmyboigreez]

On 7/2/2018 at 3:41 PM, Gez said:

I'm not British either.

 

The closest equivalent to TRU in my country would be something that is actually a retailers' cooperative rather than a single corporation. Each individual shop is independent, they just pool their resources together for marketing and bulk ordering. So it still exists and isn't going to suffer the same fate as TRU.

 

well thats your bad luck,

 

co ops exist the world over and everyone alive knows how a coop works.

 

[Immorpher]

On 7/1/2018 at 7:21 PM, R4L said:

We were too poor for that store. That's all I remember lol.

Same here! The only game I got growing up there was Shaq Fu. Despite it being hazed by reviewers, I had fun with the game.

[StevenC21]

I am really sad. When I was little, every year on my birthday that was what we did. We went to Toys 'Я' Us to spend my birthday money. I honestly was going to take my kids to do the same, if I ever have any. Its depressing.

[Maser]

Personally I didn't give a shit that it closed.  I never been there all that often as a kid and as a 28 year old adult, I don't feel the need to live in the past. 

[Avoozl]

Absolutely nothing, I don't think I ever set foot in a Toy's R Us, but I can't remember what giant store I went to one time when I got a blue Gameboy Camera.

[SoulSphere]

I remember going there many times to buy toys and video games. It was such a huge and cool store that had everything in it. The last thing I bought were some Tron toys there. Sadly it looks like stores like Target have taken over the toy market.

 

I am sad to see it go. But I hold on the childhood memories of it. I remember the story of a haunted Toys R Us as a child..

[Cruduxy Pegg]

One more to the don't care camp. There is a million other place to get toys and games than a mega brand store.