Being under the gun on project deadlines at work, I have been feeling like I don’t want to “adult” much lately. When I am like this, the old Toys “R” Us jingle runs through my head – “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid….” and this has gotten me thinking about that store in the 80s.
Toys “R” Us was the Mecca of all kids in the 80s. Until Toys “R” Us opened near our house (the store in Auburn, Massachusetts, right across the street from the Auburn Mall, probably opened in 1978 or so), the only real toy stores were KB Hobby in the malls and of course, the famous Child World located somewhere in Worcester but that was too far for us to travel. Of course, other department stores carried toys but that was just one small part of the whole store. Toys “R” Us was, as its name implies, just about toys which made it a real destination for kids.
I can recall going there and always being excited. Even the façade of the store looked like it was build just for kids with its crazy, multicolored wooden paneling and giant logo with Geoffrey the giraffe prominently displayed.
I can remember walking into the store (before they built that dumb shopping cart collection area!) and seeing the aisles full of colorful toy boxes stacked from floor to ceiling! Even today, I can remember the smell of the store – plastic and rubber. Over the years, the store changed its layout several times but while I was a kid in the 80s, it was pretty much the same. First you would go through all of the sale items so, depending on what time of the year it was, you might be seeing stuffed animals or video games or board games or candy. Then, as you walked through that section, you would be come to the educational toys with things like microscopes and number puzzles and things like that. There were a million different board games lined up on the left side. My child-mind was torn in so many different directions!
Of course, once we had an Atari 2600 or our Commodore 64, I always walked a bit further and went to the video game section!
The video game layout was interesting. The systems themselves were displayed in plastic cases so no one would steal them. Then the games for each system were displayed on boards with their cover art and the description of the game and each one would have a bunch of price tags below it. If you wanted that game, you would pull off one of the tags and bring that to the desk at the front of the store where they would retrieve your game and then you would take that to the cashier to check out. It was always exciting to see what new games were available! Once we got our commodore 64, things became a little more complex because some games would come on cassette while others came on floppy disk.
One more block of aisles further into the store were the “boy” toys and action figures. Of course, there were sections with dolls and stuffed animals but I didn’t spend any time there! I probably spent most of my time in the Star Wars aisle with my neck craning up to look at the wall of Star Wars action figures, ships, guns and the hundreds of other different items that were being produced.
In my pre-teens, I would also spend a lot of time in the Dungeons and Dragons section which had all of the rule books, modules and most intriguing to me, the little lead figurines which always looked so cool. In fact, they looked so cool that I couldn’t resist looking in the boxes that had already been opened and, after seeing that some had already been taken, even sticking a few in my pockets to take home! This was the only stealing that I ever did!
When I got a bit older, GI Joe toys replaced Star Wars and my love for Toys R Us waned a bit as I fell in love with role-playing games, comics and books which were tough to find at TRU. For me, there were a few years where that store really captured my imagination. Some of the most memorable toys that I got at Toys “R” Us were the Star Wars Death Star playset (I think I got this for my 9th birthday after begging for weeks), my Star Wars stormtrooper and Han Solo guns, the original D&D basic set, the Big Trak, and a microscope set that came with a bunch of premade slides and an insect kit which let you look up close at the bees and other bugs that were included.
Of course, over the years I’m sure there were hundreds of toys and games that we got there that I cannot remember at all. Even though it was relatively close by, Toys “R” Us was an amazing destination for kids.
