Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy

You bastards! You know who you are.

I remember calling them every day while waiting for ZELDA 2 to come out.

This breaks my heart. So many memories...like how I realized that Lionel Playworld sucked compared to TRU when I was about 8 years old. Buying Super Mario Bros. 2 and C64 there, having to take that ticket to the little window. Spending all my birthday money there in 1984 on Wave 1 Transformers. Browsing their only-in-the-80s selection of repackaged/rebranded Japanese toys. Scouring the aisles looking for rare BTAS figures. Deciding between Shogun and Conquest of the Empire. Being interviewed on television because I was first in line for Star Wars stuff in 1999. Then stuff like buying my kids toys there when they were really little, before they all shut down in Atlanta. The last hurrah was hitting the going out of business sale at the one by my house and getting like half our Skylanders for 75% off.

Off to Amazon, I guess...

This is just sad for our kid's sake. Can't imagine growing up without knowing what a dedicated huge toy store looks like.

My best memory of a TRU purchase (besides shit tons of lego) was FFT.

Yeah, Toys R Us turned into a hellhole in the last 10 years but jesus the place meant something during my childhood. It was *the* place you wanted to go, but it was only in the town 30 minutes away that had a mall. It was an Event to go there.

I remember plunking down around $74 to get Lufia and the Fortress of Doom with my 8 y.o. birthday money.
I honestly don't know what their pricing scheme was towards the end, but they seemed to charge MSRP on everything. They'd be the last stop when I'd go Scape hunting, because they'd charge 12.99 per blister. They'd often have some weird stuff that the other stores didn't carry, either because they were exclusive or they sat around there (probably because of the pricing). I probably went to TRU most often during my 20s thanks to Heroscape.

Gary Sax wrote: Yeah, Toys R Us turned into a hellhole in the last 10 years but jesus the place meant something during my childhood. It was *the* place you wanted to go, but it was only in the town 30 minutes away that had a mall. It was an Event to go there.

For us, it was an hour -- and a real treat if we got to go to Toys R Us in addition to the grocery store and/or lumber yard.

I remember my aunt taking me to Toys R Us when I was a kid on my birthday (the year my dad died) and she said I could pick my birthday present and it could be anything in the store. My heart started palpitating and I carefully walked through the aisles scanning every item.

I spent a great deal of time in the RC cars under locked glass cabinets. I looked them over and started worrying about the price cuz my mom would always yell at me when I asked for anything that expensive.

I looked over those cars for a very long time and ultimately left the store with nothing, unable to pull the trigger and say what I really wanted.

I don't know if it was the guilt or early onset analysis paralysis but goddamn if that story doesn't sum up perfectly the dysfunction I've got going on upstairs.

Anyway, that's what I think about when I see Toys R Us. A big warehouse of guilt, too big for our hero.

MacDirk Diggler wrote: You bastards! You know who you are.

I'm not sure if I'm a bastard. Do your parents need to be married before you are conceived or just before you are born?

They just need to be married, it doesn't matter when.

Black Barney wrote: I remember my aunt taking me to Toys R Us when I was a kid on my birthday (the year my dad died) and she said I could pick my birthday present and it could be anything in the store. My heart started palpitating and I carefully walked through the aisles scanning every item.

I spent a great deal of time in the RC cars under locked glass cabinets. I looked them over and started worrying about the price cuz my mom would always yell at me when I asked for anything that expensive.

I looked over those cars for a very long time and ultimately left the store with nothing, unable to pull the trigger and say what I really wanted.

I don't know if it was the guilt or early onset analysis paralysis but goddamn if that story doesn't sum up perfectly the dysfunction I've got going on upstairs.

Anyway, that's what I think about when I see Toys R Us. A big warehouse of guilt, too big for our hero.

Unless you go to Toys R' Us and buy something you really want, you can never be healed.

Toys R' Us memories:

1. When the first one opened in Sunnyvale. We were all in line and so excited. The exit door was flush with the wall, so it looked like a secret passage. I remember being fascinated by that. I think I was six.

2. I'm pretty sure I bought my first Heroscape Master set there on deep discount

3. I'd hit that place for Heroscape with my sons, and briefly, Star Wars Attactix. I think I made several stops there when my kids were younger but haven't been there for years. You can bet I'll raid the place when they go out of business, although my youngest is thirteen so I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Barney's childhood?

charlest wrote: My best memory of a TRU purchase (besides shit tons of lego) was FFT.

My memories of the place mostly involve hanging out in the video game aisle, looking at all of the Sega Master System games with that weird graph paper background on the boxes. I also have fond memories of buying FFT at the Toys R Us in NYC. I played the hell out of that game.

The great part is that it was making money, but private equity investors saddled it with a shit ton of debt and then gave themselves a huge payday with it. The actual business of selling toys couldn't wipe out the debt caused by the investors using it to make money for themselves. Hooray for the geniuses of Wall Street!

The one I grew up near, likely the same one for Barnes, had a switch back to get in the front door then a tunnel for carts to come out of. I wanted to go through that tunnel so badly but one of my older brothers told me there was a laser in there that would zap me. Being a child I became some what terrified of that area. But by the time we got to the toy gun aisle in the fear was gone. Yes toy gun aisle... But the memories that will never leave is walking up to the NES console in store (an M82) when it had Mario 3. Then in 96, walking up to the N64 for the first time and playing Mario 64. It was like playing a game on the big TV array in Bestbuy for the first time.

I went often for Heroscape and Skylanders, but recently for Crossfire and Mario Monopoly. I will be stopping by the one near me tonight to buy the rest of the figures for Monopoly.

We didn't have Toys R Us where I grew up, we had Children's Palace. Same kind of store. The first that I heard of Toys R Us was maybe in the early '80s, when they constantly paid for back cover ads for Marvel comics. Many years later, I moved to Roseville (Land of FFG), where they did have a Toys R Us. But that became a Babies R Us nearly a decade ago, and then turned into a wine warehouse store a couple of years ago.