Where Did You Get Your Toys From?
There’s a thread I’ve been seeing pop up on a few message boards lately that I thought I’d bring it to the table here. That and I’m really bored right now with nothing better to do with my life. First I’ll start and then if you feel like sharing, go nuts.
Prange Way
When I grew up the nearest retail store was about thirty minutes away by hot air balloon and much slower if we had to go by horse, which we often did in those days. One regular store we visted was Prange Way. Prange Way was crushed like a bug by Wal-Mart in the mid-nineties, but it left me with the fond memory of managing to get my hands on a Generation 2 Optimus Prime reissue on super clearance when the one in my area went belly up.
K-Mart
The other store we had in the area was K-Mart. Pretty much my regular non-Christmas or birthday selections of toys was dictated by what K-Mart had in stock, especially if it had gone on clearance. I was the master of finding awesome toys on clearance and K-Mart was my kingdom. There’s a few memories I have involving K-Mart, but the strongest one would have to be the time I had to wait months for my Mom to finish paying off a layaway. She had added a Toxo-Viper to it for me that I wanted very badly so I had to wait what seemed like forever for a four dollar toy. Man, talk about suffering.
Shopko
Ahhh Shopko, the retail chain that should have been destroyed by Wal-Mart but somehow lives on like some crazy box store zombie. I didn’t get to Shopko as much as the other two places, since it was even further away in the big city of Green Bay so it had a certain mystique about it. Shopko has always sucked for toys, but I could find something there occasionally.
Toys R Us
Back when I was a kid, a trip to Toys R Us was one of the rarest of treats. I’m sure it had to be a combination of the distance the store was to us (it was another store in Green Bay), the higher prices of the store, and the fact that there was nothing there that remotely interested my parents. Still, the few times I did get to go stand out as pure awesomeness with the exception of one trip. I was on a birthday excursion with this kid and his friends that I was partially friends with only because my sister was friends with one of the kid’s sisters. Now that I think about it, almost everyone at the party was related because they were this big white trash Irish family. Anyway, while we all in the store I got separated from the literal herd and I was lost. I believe it was caused by my utter fascination by a Star Wars toy that was like this mini-desert skiff. It was at the tale end of the Star Wars line so I was enthralled with anything new that was coming out. Anyway, the spell of Star Wars toys had gotten me in trouble and when my sister had found me she was ultra pissed. They gigantic caravan of kids had left the store without me and came had to come back when they realized I wasn’t around.
When the incident had been explained to my parents, I ended up with a bonus trip to Toys R Us where they bought me the skiff. I think it was because they had known how upset I had been both for being lost and having my sister be a super huge rag to me upon retrieving me. Come to think of it, I should have thanked her because she was crucial in getting me the toy I would have probably never have gotten otherwise.
Now it’s your turn if you feel like sharing. Anyone got any good memories of where you got your toys or anything particularly horrifying?
December 4th, 2007 at 9:11 am
This one’s easy–Child World in the Hanover Mall in Massachusetts. I spent the first eight years of my life in South Weymouth, and this was the place to go for toys. Many a He-Man and Star Wars action figure were bought by Mom and Dad Ghostal at Child World.
Of course, there were other places too, such as King’s Castleland and, best of all, Mr. Big’s Toyland in Waltham, which was pretty much the only place to get cool Japanese imports like the Bandai Godzilla toys.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:24 am
You hit the nail on the head with K-Mart and Toys R Us. Most of my money went to K-mart, while a trip to the far away Toys R Us was a treat. Though, there’s no one trip that I regard more.
I do recall waking up to a few dozen G.I. Joe action figures (w/ vehicles) under the Xmas tree. Talk about wow!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Before Toys R Us moved into the area the big Toy Store was Children’s Palace. I remember going and seeing an aisle filled with Star Wars toys. I think quite a few were the sets with the cardboard back drops. That was pretty awesome when I was 5 or 6.
On my birthday I got to make a special trip to Johnny’s Toys and go in their castle to pick out some little cheap toy. That store was pretty cool though and I remember getting some cool Star Wars figures there like Hoth Rebel Commander until I broke his head off.
Beyond that it was the normal stores like K-Mart, Van Luenens and Gold Circle.
By the time Toys R’ Us moved into the area I was more into video games.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I was a Kmart kid - in that there WERE no other toy stores in my town. KB Toys has a half-hour drive in either direction, and then there were no Toys R Us-es at either of those two locations. I think I went to TRU once when I was a child, and that was like a 45-minute drive, one-way.
Things were a bit better at my grandmother’s house, where the half-hour drive to the mall would provide not only a KB, but also a KB Toy Works AND a Toy Liquidators, a nearly forgotten toy store today. But still no TRU. That only opened later. She did, however, have an Ames, and I remember once going on a quite long car ride to a Hills.
By the time a mall opened in town, bringing a KB and a Wal*Mart, I was in middle school, and would bike there on my own. When I started driving by myself, those two KBs that had previously been half an hour away (and still were - it’s not like they moved) had TRUs by them, and the one I went to as a kid was closing.
But man, that Kmart? Probably a good 85% of the toys I had as a kid came from that place. I remember when they used to convert the Garden Center into “Toyland” at Christmas - I always thought they’d somehow added an extra room onto the store that wasn’t there during the rest of the year. It was magical…
December 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for sharing everyone. Out of our small sampling here it looks like Kmart really dropped the ball as being the toy leader.
Yo, I think that we have almost the same situation with TRU. It was 45 minutes away from me as well. I forgot about KB though. Damn.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Okay, I know this is a really old post, but what the heck?!
There were two Toy Store meccas in my area (or at least that my Mom would drive me to). First being Child World at the Westgate Mall. This place was like heaven on Earth. I remember the place seemed like it was the Area 54 Warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the shelves towered into the sky.
The other place was Kings Castle Land toy shop. We had this local fantasy theme park, they had a couple fire breathing dragons, a tea-cup ride, and stuff from classic fairy tails and nursery rhymes. They also had a toy store, which wasn’t exactly big, but they had a LOT of stuff there. It was basically one of the go-to places for Transformers.
The Toy Peddler - This was a second hand toy store in a plaza in the center of town. It was ran by this little old lady, and she had EVERYTHING there. The place was no bigger than 20×30 feet (just a guesstimate). In the center, there was an island with baskets of action figures, there was stuff from GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, Thundercats, etc. The place was wall-to-wall toys. Growing up in a family on a pretty tight budget, I got a lot of my toys there.