I grew up in small town Kansas so there was no toy store near by. I think the closest Toys R Us was 5 hours away. Had to make due with Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, ALCO, etc.
Ryan is my AFT: Action Figure Therapist. I discovered this channel last year while taking some time off sick from work. Work was making me sick. So I quit. Now, I'm a full-time artist. No longer sick because I'm doing what I was born to do. AFT. Thank you, Ryan. You're GREAT!
Thanks for the shoutout 🙏🏽 Toy stores are the lifeline to indie toys that otherwise wouldn’t be discovered. Just like a good record store employee back in the day would introduce you to new music based on a song you liked, a great toy store staff member can help you find unique and exciting toys you might not discover otherwise. We need more toy stores like this; without them, we're stuck buying the same familiar items over and over again.
I worked in the electronics department at Setvice merchandise in the early 90’s for 3 years. All pricey merchandise was held in the warehouse and you had to bring a slip to a checkout counter to get the merchandise. All inexpensive items were available on shelf. Really enjoying your Chanel!
I take my kids to stores to pick a toy for good grades. As my Mom did that for me growing up. She took me to comic book stores/conventions, Wal-Mart, Kay-Bees, & Toy R Us. Ahhh the memories! Thank you Ryan & Tony for sharing your experiences.
In California, Service Merchandise Store had one item displayed, and then you would write the stock number down. Then, go to a counter , and they would retrieve that item from their warehouse. Then you would go to the register and pay for it.
I'm pretty sure some of these kids who are being rewarded for their behavior are also going to Target since it has the biggest toy aisle of any retail store. There's also book stores. I remember as a kid, I went to Barnes and Noble as a reward for cleaning up my bedroom and got two Madeline books in the children's section there. Barnes and Noble is the only of my favorite childhood stores remaining, and I hope it never goes away.
I just heard you talk about that guy that had extra accessories? I'm a collector to and I always save all my weapons from Joe's Ninja turtles Star wars transformers He-Man. I think it's a good idea to post things you need because I would definitely send you some things if you need it. And on the other side you'll be able to sell more stuff and have content for your podcast which I love!!! Rommain Duluth Minnesota, toy collector also.
I like to see Tony show up in Convention videos. He seems to share my love for Transformers. I would love to see you guys have a conversation about the line. Maybe do a spotlight on specific lines and cover several pieces. Cheers!
In the late 70’s and early 80’s a place like Zayre had a lot of toys. KBToys was my main location. I loved walking in there not knowing what overstocked and non-selling toys they would have at a steep discount. Stuff from the original Battlestar Galactica and Black Hole I got from there. I still have a few unopened pieces from there. I don’t remember Service Merchandise having a large selection of toys, electronics yes..
Service Merchandise baby! I remember scoring some Last Action Hero figures there. Miss that place. This was in Jackson, Tennessee, right behind the Old Hickory Mall.
I was happy going to the dollar store to get those green army figures. Imagination at its finest. Even the ice-cream truck would sell the airplane with the parachute that would deploy after you shot it upwards with a rubber band/slingshot. Those were the days Jack!
The Starting Lineup conventions back in the mid to late 90's were so fun. Trading in the lobbies, papers and post it notes stuck in every elevator so people could trade and sell until 3am, lol. Would barely sleep for 2 or 3 days.
The birthday, good grade etc experience is always fun to see. I think these toy companies are shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring the local shops. The online/toy aisle in big-box shops cannot compare to the wonderment kids have when they come to shops like ours.
when i was a kid we had service merchandise and Johnny's toys the sent you a card in the mail for your birthday with a key in it and you got to go in this castle inside there and get a free gift it was awesome
I live in Toronto, CAN, and back in the 70's and 80's we had a store called Consumers Distributing and it was the same thing, you had to fill out a form and select the toy you wanted from a catalog.
I love it when you two guys get together at the shows and start talking toys and hanging out, i’ve always wondered if you guys were childhood friends maybe I’ve missed it if you said it in other episodes, I don’t remember love the show podcast. I’m enjoying all the toys.
born in 78, and originally from NJ. Consumers, a box store, was the same as story retold at around 14:00...also shopped at WoolWorth in Newark and Kearny had Ben Franklins - basement was all toys!
Love this podcast. It's wild to me that you guys grew up where I did, naming malls are stores and roads I am very familiar with. I really need to go check out Knowhere Comics at some point
For anyone that grew up in Montgomerey County Maryland in the 80s and 90s we had a Lionel Kiddie City where the Crown Books used to be in White Flint. KB Toys was at White Flint Mall and Montgomery Mall. Juvenile Sales Co. Toys was in Wheaton (where the CVS on University Blvd. is) and off of Rockville Pike past Montgomerey college. And Toys R Us was on Rockville Pike (where Pike n Rose is) and Gaithersburg (where the Burlington is).
It's sad. Eventually those collections from 80s childhoods stored in their parents basements will eventually dry up. It can't go on forever. Eventually collectors and vendors will have it all.
The discussion about the home town con feel vs the convention center, for me nothing illustrates this better than the feel of the first 3 SW Celebrations (especially the first one in Denver) vs whatever the abomination is that they've become.
I’m a kid of the 80’s and 9’s and I miss magazines !!!! And sertain comics !!! I have all of the issues of a legendary uk comic called toxic ! It featured marshal law and accident man etc ! I think there was almost 30 issues before it went into liquidation!!!! I used to pick up s copy every week from my newsagents on my way to school and read it on my dinner break !!!!
Going to the toy store is a big deal for me as a parent. My kids don't want to wait (even with next day shipping) to order a toy. Exactly as you said, kids want to walk around and see what they can spend their money on. I live near Tokyo and we still have a traditional candy shop (like a penny candy store) and the kids just love picking out things. I also grew up near Ft. Lauderdale and Miami and don't remember Toys R Us until much later, but it was one far away. It was always Lionel Play World (I think off Hwy 1 on the south end of Pompano Beach).
Toys r us was the only real toy store around where I grew up. Never got to go when I was a kid, though. I had to wait until I was 30 before I stepped foot inside a toys r us, and unfortunately, they went out of business about a year later
So I’m in the UK, I grew up in a city called Canterbury and there was a department store called Ricemans, it had 7 storeys and 1 of those was devoted to toys. It was there that I would look and buy my toys from particularly my Toybiz Spider-Man collection
Cols. Ohio Children's Palace and a department store called Gold Circle. as a kid those top shelves may as well have been three stories high. now the only toy only store is Big Fun, a locally owned store similar to Toy Federation. you guys know Big Fun? not a bad idea to keep a decentralized inventory. forgot about k-mart!
Toytown forever! It was a huge warehouse of toys, basically. Then there was ToyWorld, which was in shopping centres all over town. Local department stores were my main spots, tho. John Martin's aka "Johnnies" had a HUGE toy department. Big W was pretty good, too. Toys R Us didn't come to Straya til the 90s. Heaps of my mates got jobs there when it opened up. Applied, got an interview but didn't get the gig. Damn. Spewing at the time. In hindsight, it was prolly a good thing, lol. Leika is a big toy retailer in Sewden. When I was over there a few years ago, I took my nephews in every Friday, a tie-in to their weekly candy run (Swedish kids smash the local candy store every weekend.) Little bastards cost me a fortune, lmao...
I think as I got older Wal-mart was the place even in the late 80's. Before that we would go to Sears or Montgomery Ward, Every now and then we would get to go to Toys-r-us
Man... the amount of vids I've watched and I'm just NOW finding out Tony is in Florida... Does he have his own shop? If so what's it called? Keep up the great videos guys. EDIT: Never mind! Found it. KnoWhere Toys.
Neither toys r us or Walmart killed toy sales. That would be video games and smart phones. Toys r us relied on toy sales. Walmart still has a massive toy aisle and they are constantly sitting on stock for up to a year before putting it on clearance. Simply put kids are not into toys anymore its mainly a collector hobby now. If you want to go one step further, the toy companies themselves are their biggest enemy. They've priced out children completely. Its for adults now and the fact is not that many adults are into toys. Little timmy saves his allowance for weeks or months and now that is only enough to buy 1 or 2 figures. Or they could get a new game for similar price. Its not rocket science. The cost of new toys is out of hand for the value offered. Its easy to see why kids would rather play video games. A child needs at least a few figures from a line to play, thats just not realistic for most kids anymore
o-ring didn't sell because hasbro was charging $40+ for two figures. The o-rings should have been collector friendly since it was sold on pulse. They failed all around. The figures were also re-casted from original molds, which is why SS and SE couldn't stand right.
Alot if ppl owned these rare toys. Over the yrs lost the large parts but have random small parts that are hard to find. These ppl are the ones who can give the little hard to find parts. Otherwise it gets thrown away.. I have weapons and accessories but jit the figures
if ever there was a hall of fame for toystores,....im pickin' a family owned outfit long gone now called howard griffins land of toys,....it was on the river here and functioned as a boating dealership in the offseason, but when early september came around , gone wre the boats and motors, and in came the toys,....had a santa, and plush life size animals, and a huge model train layout,......it was at its peak in the early 60s -mid sixties,....i can remember the boxed cox rc planes, gi joes, captain action johnny west, you name it,...howard griffin land o toys, loads of fun for girls and boys, bring the kids and look around, for thew biggest toy deals in the town RIP😞
What toy store did you buy from as a kid?
Hills is where the toys are
toys r us and kb toys
I grew up in small town Kansas so there was no toy store near by. I think the closest Toys R Us was 5 hours away. Had to make due with Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, ALCO, etc.
Toys r us and toys by Roy in Albuquerque
Zayre, Sears, Treasury Drugs, Lionel Playworld, Ben Franklin, Toys R Us, and KB toys.
Ryan is my AFT: Action Figure Therapist.
I discovered this channel last year while taking some time off sick from work. Work was making me sick. So I quit. Now, I'm a full-time artist. No longer sick because I'm doing what I was born to do. AFT. Thank you, Ryan. You're GREAT!
Thanks for the shoutout 🙏🏽 Toy stores are the lifeline to indie toys that otherwise wouldn’t be discovered. Just like a good record store employee back in the day would introduce you to new music based on a song you liked, a great toy store staff member can help you find unique and exciting toys you might not discover otherwise. We need more toy stores like this; without them, we're stuck buying the same familiar items over and over again.
Great conversation. Thanks for pulling the curtain back a little bit for us in this episode.
This is quickly becoming my favorite TH-cam channel. Thanks for the free entertainment.
I worked in the electronics department at Setvice merchandise in the early 90’s for 3 years. All pricey merchandise was held in the warehouse and you had to bring a slip to a checkout counter to get the merchandise. All inexpensive items were available on shelf.
Really enjoying your Chanel!
Wow…..two honest, from the heart groovy dudes……most awesome! Thanx & God bless
I take my kids to stores to pick a toy for good grades. As my Mom did that for me growing up. She took me to comic book stores/conventions, Wal-Mart, Kay-Bees, & Toy R Us. Ahhh the memories!
Thank you Ryan & Tony for sharing your experiences.
I 63 Years live in Tampa Bay. Your store is on my Bucket List when I retired
I’ve been waiting for Tony to be on the podcast. You guys have great convos about old times
In California, Service Merchandise Store had one item displayed, and then you would write the stock number down. Then, go to a counter , and they would retrieve that item from their warehouse. Then you would go to the register and pay for it.
I'm pretty sure some of these kids who are being rewarded for their behavior are also going to Target since it has the biggest toy aisle of any retail store. There's also book stores. I remember as a kid, I went to Barnes and Noble as a reward for cleaning up my bedroom and got two Madeline books in the children's section there. Barnes and Noble is the only of my favorite childhood stores remaining, and I hope it never goes away.
I worked at a Toys R Us-one of the best jobs I ever had.
I just heard you talk about that guy that had extra accessories? I'm a collector to and I always save all my weapons from Joe's Ninja turtles Star wars transformers He-Man. I think it's a good idea to post things you need because I would definitely send you some things if you need it. And on the other side you'll be able to sell more stuff and have content for your podcast which I love!!! Rommain Duluth Minnesota, toy collector also.
I bought toys at Zayres back in the 80's
I'm only a third into this, but I can confidently say it's a great episode. Great work gentlemen, keep it up!
Childrens Palace toy store was one of my favorite places to buy toys
Ryan and Tony are awesome dudes 🤜🤛
I like to see Tony show up in Convention videos. He seems to share my love for Transformers. I would love to see you guys have a conversation about the line. Maybe do a spotlight on specific lines and cover several pieces. Cheers!
In the late 70’s and early 80’s a place like Zayre had a lot of toys. KBToys was my main location. I loved walking in there not knowing what overstocked and non-selling toys they would have at a steep discount. Stuff from the original Battlestar Galactica and Black Hole I got from there. I still have a few unopened pieces from there. I don’t remember Service Merchandise having a large selection of toys, electronics yes..
Service Merchandise baby! I remember scoring some Last Action Hero figures there. Miss that place. This was in Jackson, Tennessee, right behind the Old Hickory Mall.
You have grown so much,that a co worker asked if I watched. I told him i have been since the beginning. He's hooked too. We're in 🇨🇦
That's awesome!
I was happy going to the dollar store to get those green army figures. Imagination at its finest. Even the ice-cream truck would sell the airplane with the parachute that would deploy after you shot it upwards with a rubber band/slingshot. Those were the days Jack!
It was great seeing you at JoeFest. Can’t wait to make it over to check out the Toy Federation store.
The Starting Lineup conventions back in the mid to late 90's were so fun. Trading in the lobbies, papers and post it notes stuck in every elevator so people could trade and sell until 3am, lol. Would barely sleep for 2 or 3 days.
The birthday, good grade etc experience is always fun to see. I think these toy companies are shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring the local shops. The online/toy aisle in big-box shops cannot compare to the wonderment kids have when they come to shops like ours.
I love hearing you guys talk about the toy stores Hialeah in the 80's, it's when and where I grew up.
This was my favorite podcast to date. If you could get Kurt Russell that would be amazing
when i was a kid we had service merchandise and Johnny's toys the sent you a card in the mail for your birthday with a key in it and you got to go in this castle inside there and get a free gift it was awesome
Heck yeah. Sevice Merchandise. Expensive, but they had some hard to find stuff. That place was a trip.
I live in Toronto, CAN, and back in the 70's and 80's we had a store called Consumers Distributing and it was the same thing, you had to fill out a form and select the toy you wanted from a catalog.
I love it when you two guys get together at the shows and start talking toys and hanging out, i’ve always wondered if you guys were childhood friends maybe I’ve missed it if you said it in other episodes, I don’t remember love the show podcast. I’m enjoying all the toys.
born in 78, and originally from NJ. Consumers, a box store, was the same as story retold at around 14:00...also shopped at WoolWorth in Newark and Kearny had Ben Franklins - basement was all toys!
Homie is rockin' the Intellvision t-shirt! Love it. Bee-seventeen booomber!
Now we need an Astro Smash shirt.
I got my Optimus Prime at Service Merchandise! and I was always excited when the big catalog came in the Fall.
KB Toys was always my go too. We didn't get a TRU until around 1997-1998.
KB!!
@ToyFederationPodcastchannel The KB discount bins most always resulted in finding a few gems buried within. Good times.
I look forward to this every week guy, keep it up! 👍
Born in 1980....Little town in WV...we had Hecks ...Ames and a 10 minute car ride would get you to a Hills....
Grew up in south Florida as well. Still here. Lionel playworld was my favorite as a kid.
Our Service Merchandise was the same I remember lots of electronics ... we also had a Children's palace .... that turned into a Toys R Us
The good old day
WOW Service Merchandise Christmas catalog was awesome. They were closer to me than Toy R Us. memories
@@antr7493 Hill"s and Wolworth had Gi joes had Transformers too
And Jamesway
Awesomeness Im jealous i wish I was at joefest
you gotta come!
Love this podcast. It's wild to me that you guys grew up where I did, naming malls are stores and roads I am very familiar with. I really need to go check out Knowhere Comics at some point
The Turbo Pork Art on 9 to 5 warriors is so good
Why does this have the feel of a Pro Wrestling interview? Lol It must be the hotel room.
In New Jersey back in 1960/1970s Two Guys similar to Todays Walmart
We had a Two Guys in Bethlehem, PA. I remember as a kid that was the place to go for toys.
K-mart was where most of my toys came from. KB toys would be the toy store of my childhood
For anyone that grew up in Montgomerey County Maryland in the 80s and 90s we had a Lionel Kiddie City where the Crown Books used to be in White Flint. KB Toys was at White Flint Mall and Montgomery Mall. Juvenile Sales Co. Toys was in Wheaton (where the CVS on University Blvd. is) and off of Rockville Pike past Montgomerey college. And Toys R Us was on Rockville Pike (where Pike n Rose is) and Gaithersburg (where the Burlington is).
yo thats love fam!!!!! awesome!!!!!!
It's sad. Eventually those collections from 80s childhoods stored in their parents basements will eventually dry up. It can't go on forever. Eventually collectors and vendors will have it all.
Toys'R'Us, KB and Children's Palace when I got to go out somewhere for the weekend, otherwise it was Ames, Roses and K-Mart
The discussion about the home town con feel vs the convention center, for me nothing illustrates this better than the feel of the first 3 SW Celebrations (especially the first one in Denver) vs whatever the abomination is that they've become.
Service was a catalog company, but they did have toys and things on shelves too.
I remember that Service Merchandise off Kendall Drive by the Hammocks area.
I’m a kid of the 80’s and 9’s and I miss magazines !!!! And sertain comics !!! I have all of the issues of a legendary uk comic called toxic ! It featured marshal law and accident man etc ! I think there was almost 30 issues before it went into liquidation!!!! I used to pick up s copy every week from my newsagents on my way to school and read it on my dinner break !!!!
Going to the toy store is a big deal for me as a parent. My kids don't want to wait (even with next day shipping) to order a toy. Exactly as you said, kids want to walk around and see what they can spend their money on. I live near Tokyo and we still have a traditional candy shop (like a penny candy store) and the kids just love picking out things.
I also grew up near Ft. Lauderdale and Miami and don't remember Toys R Us until much later, but it was one far away. It was always Lionel Play World (I think off Hwy 1 on the south end of Pompano Beach).
We got a lot of our Joes from 3D Department Store as kids.
The first toy r us opened in Washington Dc in 1948, im from the UK and i specifically remember the first one opening around 1984.
And Hamleys was the first EVER toy shop opened back in 1740!!
Eye worked at Zayre from 1987-88....
Toys R Us, Best Products, KB Toys, GemCo, FedCo, Sears, K-Mart, Pennys..... somewhat in order of prominence.
Toys r us was the only real toy store around where I grew up. Never got to go when I was a kid, though. I had to wait until I was 30 before I stepped foot inside a toys r us, and unfortunately, they went out of business about a year later
Kb toys was my life
Toys r us, kb toys, Kmart, Target for me in Minnesota. Born 1980
49th street in Hialeah had Toys R Us, Playworld, and Service Merchandise.
So I’m in the UK, I grew up in a city called Canterbury and there was a department store called Ricemans, it had 7 storeys and 1 of those was devoted to toys. It was there that I would look and buy my toys from particularly my Toybiz Spider-Man collection
KB-Toys, Toys r Us and FAO Shwarz where the only toy shops but picked some up at TG$Y and other dept. stores
The grocery stores used to have some decent toy sections
If you're talking about Vintage Kenner Alien toys, don't forget the hand held movie viewer.
Cols. Ohio Children's Palace and a department store called Gold Circle. as a kid those top shelves may as well have been three stories high. now the only toy only store is Big Fun, a locally owned store similar to Toy Federation. you guys know Big Fun? not a bad idea to keep a decentralized inventory. forgot about k-mart!
Let get Devon on the podcast!!
It's the new Skybound imprint driving Joe sales, no doubt.
My Service Merchandise had tags you would take to register and then you waited at pickup for the item
Toytown forever! It was a huge warehouse of toys, basically. Then there was ToyWorld, which was in shopping centres all over town. Local department stores were my main spots, tho. John Martin's aka "Johnnies" had a HUGE toy department. Big W was pretty good, too.
Toys R Us didn't come to Straya til the 90s. Heaps of my mates got jobs there when it opened up. Applied, got an interview but didn't get the gig. Damn. Spewing at the time. In hindsight, it was prolly a good thing, lol.
Leika is a big toy retailer in Sewden. When I was over there a few years ago, I took my nephews in every Friday, a tie-in to their weekly candy run (Swedish kids smash the local candy store every weekend.) Little bastards cost me a fortune, lmao...
I think as I got older Wal-mart was the place even in the late 80's. Before that we would go to Sears or Montgomery Ward, Every now and then we would get to go to Toys-r-us
I like the comparison to art because it is art
tombstone is a legendary film
It's the best.
@@ToyFederationPodcastchannel It's definitely one of the magnificent 7.
Those old toys r us orange price stickers were so hard to get off back in the day. I don't think you remove them with destroying the box
Man... the amount of vids I've watched and I'm just NOW finding out Tony is in Florida... Does he have his own shop? If so what's it called? Keep up the great videos guys.
EDIT: Never mind! Found it. KnoWhere Toys.
Wal-Mart is what happened to toy stores.
Actually Toy r Us is what closed down a majority of toy and hobby stores.
Neither toys r us or Walmart killed toy sales. That would be video games and smart phones. Toys r us relied on toy sales. Walmart still has a massive toy aisle and they are constantly sitting on stock for up to a year before putting it on clearance. Simply put kids are not into toys anymore its mainly a collector hobby now. If you want to go one step further, the toy companies themselves are their biggest enemy. They've priced out children completely. Its for adults now and the fact is not that many adults are into toys. Little timmy saves his allowance for weeks or months and now that is only enough to buy 1 or 2 figures. Or they could get a new game for similar price. Its not rocket science. The cost of new toys is out of hand for the value offered. Its easy to see why kids would rather play video games. A child needs at least a few figures from a line to play, thats just not realistic for most kids anymore
Edit: add pics of the things you are talking about
It’s a podcast
@@ToyFederationPodcastchannel Get some guests, then
Guess you didn’t watch this week’s episode
He was right about of about Service Merchandise had one on the Shelf he went and ordered it come out on the variable belt
Kurt Russell also wear an Eye Patch in "Captain Ron".
That’s so funny-my wife hates Red Lobster, too.
Oh yeah kB toy store
Kurt Russell was a child actor in one of Elvis’ movies!
Kurt Russell wore an eye-patch in the Escape movies and Captain Ron…. it’s avoidable, but he is still cool as heck
o-ring didn't sell because hasbro was charging $40+ for two figures. The o-rings should have been collector friendly since it was sold on pulse. They failed all around. The figures were also re-casted from original molds, which is why SS and SE couldn't stand right.
Alot if ppl owned these rare toys. Over the yrs lost the large parts but have random small parts that are hard to find. These ppl are the ones who can give the little hard to find parts. Otherwise it gets thrown away.. I have weapons and accessories but jit the figures
Children's Palace and KB
Are you going to be at Florida Supercon?
What’s the name of Tony’s store? I frequent South FL a biiiit, and would love to stop by.
Knowhere Toys
It was an Alien Target set with a suction cup dart gun.
KB Toy Store, Toys R Us and Child World
Sleeveless hoodies are crazy
Your mate sounds like Badger from breaking bad….
if ever there was a hall of fame for toystores,....im pickin' a family owned outfit long gone now called howard griffins land of toys,....it was on the river here and functioned as a boating dealership in the offseason, but when early september came around , gone wre the boats and motors, and in came the toys,....had a santa, and plush life size animals, and a huge model train layout,......it was at its peak in the early 60s -mid sixties,....i can remember the boxed cox rc planes, gi joes, captain action johnny west, you name it,...howard griffin land o toys, loads of fun for girls and boys, bring the kids and look around, for thew biggest toy deals in the town RIP😞
Mine is "anime hurricane" "electronics boutique" "ebtoys" "toys r us"
Any Toy Shows in The West Coast??
Best
Best?
I got that Princess Leia Hoth from servers' merchandise
In America don't large supermarkets have a lot of toys? Toys'R'us for me
Bought from K mart , KayBee Toys,
You know what the American toy store is today. Walmart