The X-Entertainment Blog

04/30/2003: The Toys R’ Us Catalog.

I think you’ll like this one - a page-by-page look at the Toys R’ Us ‘Out of this World’ Toy Book, covering He-Man, Centurions, Inhumanoids, She-Ra, Lazer Tag, and a whole lot more. Enjoy. Suck my bandwidth.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 61 comments

So, where’d you find this one, Matt? Great article, love the Hulk Easter Egg.

Posted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 04/30/2003 5:56 PM EDT

Excellent! Not exactly funny, but it was fascinating. Surprised there’s no NES adds, though!

Posted by Freezair @ 04/30/2003 6:12 PM EDT

Because I grew up in the country, before a time where crazed paedophillic madmen lurked around behind every bush, a lot of my friends had tunnels of fun and used them as backyard tents. I wanted a tunnel of fun. I craved a tunnel of fun. I NEEDED a tunnel of fun. In hindsight, I’m lucky I didn’t end up in some reparative therapy prototype being exorcised of my homoerotic girl-loving demons based on that alone.

Also? I love the wood master deluxe wood table and four chairs. I mean, really, it’s a cool thing to have when you’re a kid. But are you really gonna be sitting around playing poker for bits ‘n’ bites with all the other kids just hoping that someone says "Jeez, Sarah — the natural finish on this table is just *gorgeous*!"

Posted by Molten @ 04/30/2003 6:47 PM EDT

Molten:

I can’t be sure, but it sounds like the second coming of the Ruxpin might actually be Rupert the Bear, a pretentious English bear that did…stuff. I don’t know anymore than that. ANd I really can’t be bothered to even care.

I really wish I had paid more attention as a kid. I was pretty much all about the Star Wars, G.I.Joes and Transformers, and never really got any of the other stuff. I hope they bring back Inhumanoids and Centurions, because I probably would have loved them then, and now I don’t have to rely on my parents. Just my wife.

Posted by Sean @ 04/30/2003 6:59 PM EDT

I wanted Centurions badly. The only subsitute I had was the Legos long strips that had holes in them for use of putting in wheel spokes. Was not as much fun. After seeing the cyborgs in that ad and imagining combining the two halves of the villains, I just couldn’t take it. I’d kill for Centurions action figures, even the used ones on ebay.

Too bad I’m too old to be playing with toys.

Posted by Go Knock Jimmy Down @ 04/30/2003 8:40 PM EDT

I had a lot of the things in the catalog. Brings back memories…

Posted by JG! @ 04/30/2003 11:31 PM EDT

I used to have one of the Centurions. But it was at the end of my first run of toy buying days, so I never got big into them.

Inhumanoids either.

Though I wished I had kept that Robotix kit I had and seen in that flyer.

That thing was sweet.

I knew I shoulda bought the rerelease at the World of Science store a year or so back..

But no love for M.A.S.K. Matt?\

Cmon, those toys KICKED ASS. 1/2 sized GI Joe figs with transforming vehicles..

Back when I was playing Warhammer 40K every week, I was REALLY wistful for the Boulder Hill Playset to use as uber scenery. A big perfectly to scale gas station that turned into uber combat base..

Another of the toys I was stupid enough to get rid of as a child..

Posted by Bloodcat @ 04/30/2003 11:35 PM EDT

Oh yeah, the NES really wasn’t big until 1988-1989.

Sure some people got them in 1985-86, but they were mostly being test marketed at the time.

Christmas 87 was the NES’ first BIG year.

88-89 is when it became a legend.

89 is also when I bought my Sega Genesis. 87 was the Commodore 64. 86 was the Nintendo. The Commodore 64 was the best, and I still use my Genesis to this day.

I was never a big Nintendo obessive. Too many other game systems outshone it.

Though a fond memory was Christmas 90, when I got RPGs for the NES, C64, and Genesis. Some lovvin for every system..

Posted by Bloodcat @ 04/30/2003 11:43 PM EDT

matt, when are you going to get around to reviewing the corey haim e! true hollywood story (not that you promised to do it, but it just *has* to be reviewed)??? the next time it’s on TV, which isn’t often for some reason (perhaps the brass at e! have something against corey), i’m going to tape it and send it to you for a proper review. this thing’s mind-blowing; you haven’t lived until you’ve seen corey jamming on a casio.

Posted by jason @ 05/01/2003 1:48 AM EDT

..if only everyone would keep Toys R Us catalogs.. I still have a Fluppy Puppy. >.>

There were no My Little Ponies though, that sucked..but the kid in the Lazer Tag helmet was a good tradeoff.

Posted by Hollow @ 05/01/2003 2:49 AM EDT

Great article, shame about the lack of transformers. Does anyone remember the fat, glossy Lego catalogs of ‘88? Or the Matchbox cars catalog circa ‘83. Time to trawl eBay..

Posted by crispin @ 05/01/2003 3:36 AM EDT

Matt — I vaguely remember Blinkins and I’m pretty sure you’re right about the frog. Also, the full description reads: "Blinkins-trapper has light up eyes, snapping net for prey!" That about says it all right there. I remember having a few Blinkins too; they were pretty cool. Anything with antennae and hair in fun colors rocks. Also, their bottoms were soft. And they lit up! Not as cool as Glo-worms, though.

Posted by Wes @ 05/01/2003 4:58 AM EDT

all that stuff was extremely over priced. I have a rub-a-dub doggy…and as cool as it is…im not quite sure if its thaaaaat cool to pay that much. Toys suffer the same over priced fate now a days too.

Posted by kennef @ 05/01/2003 9:59 AM EDT

I had the fisher price microscope. When I first found out about masturbation, I used the microscope to count my sperm. Sadly, there were none. Maybe cause it only magnified 2x.

Posted by chad @ 05/01/2003 10:37 AM EDT

This article brings many memories back. Horrible, terrible memories of the time I worked at Toys R Us. I can still hear the whiney children, you know. Every night when I go to sleep…

Posted by Casey Jones @ 05/01/2003 10:39 AM EDT

My sisters and I had quite a few things from this catalog, including that Pamela doll. Seeing that picture brought it all back… the cloth body and the rock-hard arms and legs, and the slot in her back to put the themed card of sayings. We had the out to dinner version I am going to ask my mom why the hell she paid 50+ dollars for that thing!! But yeh, this is bringing it all back to me. I miss my old toys. And our Commodore 64, which my parents DONATED when I wasn’t looking. ::seethes::

On a side note, that Nokia floating ad is really pissing me off, I don’t have the greatest connection as it is. See if I ever decide to buy a Nokia phone now.

Posted by Amanda @ 05/01/2003 12:11 PM EDT

Wow. Who else went throught this going, "Had it, had it, wanted it, friend had it, wanted it, had it, had it. . ."

Great job Matt. Stuff I haven’t thought of in YEARS. Construx, Rub-A-Dub Doggy, the Fischer-Price tape recorder. Man!

Posted by Dane E. Coffey @ 05/01/2003 12:30 PM EDT

beautiful! brings it back

Posted by dan @ 05/01/2003 12:46 PM EDT

matt, thanks for the trip down memory lane. i remember spending hours in toys ‘r us, back before video games when they actually had a lot of toys for kids ten and under. these days it seems like toys are going out of style, believe it or not. once kids turn 5 or 6 they just play video games, which is cool but dude, sometimes you just need a gi joe to kick some ass.

Posted by alex kidd @ 05/01/2003 1:21 PM EDT

all i can say matt, is thank you. You are a hero among us twenty-somethings. Thank you. THANK YOU.

Posted by wack0 @ 05/01/2003 1:47 PM EDT

Hell, you’re a hero to us 15-somethings too, Matt.

Posted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 05/01/2003 1:50 PM EDT

Matt, you may be interested in this site:

http://www.amoktime.com

It’s for a store out here on Long Island (the most brilliantly named place in the world…it’s a LONG ISLAND…get it?) that sells old toys. LOTS of old toys. And some Japanese Transformers. They had a giraffe in Japan, with it’s tongue permanently sticking out…

Posted by Nemesis @ 05/01/2003 2:17 PM EDT

WOW! that was too much fun. I dont’ remember blinkins either and I usually remember everything. I had so much of that stuff. ALL of page 1 and so much of the rest. Was I spoiled? I didn’t think so before but seeing how many toys I had, I am starting to think my mom was more generous than I believed. Please do more of these. I loved it.

Posted by t-rah @ 05/01/2003 2:21 PM EDT

Posted by t-rah @ 05/01/2003 2:22 PM EDT

Matt, once we’re in six pages or so don’t we deserve a respite from those terrible ads?

Posted by Ben @ 05/01/2003 2:45 PM EDT

Um, doesn’t it occur to you that the more pages an article is, the more bandwidth used, i.e. the need for more ads? Click them, ingrates!

Posted by grrr............. @ 05/01/2003 3:09 PM EDT

Sometimes I think Matt may be psychic…I was just thinking about Sweet Secrets the other day, except for the life of me I couldn’t remember the name. What would we ever do without Matt and his psychic powers? He saves us so much research/google time!

Posted by purplegirl247 @ 05/01/2003 3:38 PM EDT

Wow so many memories never had many of those toys. Only ones I did have where the tape recorder thing and the construxs on page 15. My parents stuck with mostly model kits and those construction sets. I think it screwed me up for life for some strange reason math and physics course are a major turn on for me.

Oh and here is a question there was this toy that was a little boulder and you would press a button and it would turn into a monster and eat a little goblin figure in the process of turning into said monster. Anyone have any idea what it was called?

Posted by Geek @ 05/01/2003 4:56 PM EDT

odd…the ads never show up on my computer. I’ve got my ad blocking software off and have had it that way for a few weeks, but the ads just show up as "page cannot be displayed." I’d click the ads, but I can’t. sorry.

Posted by Scott @ 05/01/2003 5:15 PM EDT

yeah, i was all like: had it, wanted it, friend had it…

just when i thought i’d remembered every one of my childhood toys through this website, i see little Sweet Secrets dolls. holy gumdrops, i’d forgotten about them.

this was a spiffy article, Matt… i hope you come across more flyers like this in the future with stuff like video games in them.

Posted by zann @ 05/01/2003 5:16 PM EDT

Every single time I come back to this site it puts a big smile on my face and brings me back to when life was good and the only thing you had to worry about was why you felt that weird feeling in yer pants when you were playing with the Baronness and Lady Jaye… but enough of my weird fetishes

I remember one christmas my brother and I collected as many different catalogs as possible, we’re talking JCPenny, KMart, anything we could get our hands on that had pictures of toys the biggie of course being the Toys ‘R’ Us catalog. We took scissors and cut out the pictures of all the toys we wanted and then glued them in the order we wanted them onto about 10 sheets of construction paper front and back spent an hour trying to stuff all that paper and glue into an envelope and mailed it to santa…. I DIDN’T GET A DAMN THING I WANTED THAT YEAR… FUCK SANTA IF I WANT TOYS I’LL THROW A TANTRUM TILL I GET EM LIKE EVERY OTHER NORMAL KID…

whoa… sorry about that, and thank you matt.

Posted by WonKa @ 05/01/2003 6:00 PM EDT

I’ve actually seen those Rupert the Bear shows (as I recall, he makes Teddy Ruxpin look downright rugged). It’s funny because my girlfriend is from England, originally, and she remembers all the posh parents naming their kids ‘Rupert’ and the kids getting teased about it because of the book series. So anyway, while I know it wasn’t that show, I hadn’t realized how many similarities there were in these two seemingly different shows, ’til you mentioned it, Sean. Unfortunately, they were playing the news at the gym this morning and again at lunch, otherwise I might have asked the staff if they knew what it was. ("And looked like a twenty-four-year-old-dweeb?" Yes; and looked like a twenty-four-year-old-dweeb. With tight buns. So neener neener, so-called-cool non-cartoon-watching kids. ;p )

I don’t know what they’re called, Geek, but that sort of reminds me of the MOTU Stonedar and Rokkon figures. (I know you probably weren’t thinking of that, though). Does anyone remember the name of the female MOTU/She-Ra comet warrior? I had that figure (probably under the auspices that it was a girl figure and was, therefore, a vaguely girl-appropriate toy to play with) but I don’t remember her name and Google isn’t helping me out. Fucking Google.

I’m just kidding Google; you know I love you. Let’s never fight again.

Posted by Molten @ 05/01/2003 6:12 PM EDT

Good to see KIA is still making cheap transportation aimed at young people. In fact I think the RIO uses the same frame as the bmx bike.

Posted by naturekid @ 05/01/2003 6:18 PM EDT

I missed something…where’s the Hulk Easter egg? I thought there might be something in the duck pictures somewhere, but I never found anything anywhere.

Posted by Teddy Ray @ 05/01/2003 6:20 PM EDT

Mouseover the Hulk Pez dispenser on each page.

Posted by Hulk Eggs @ 05/01/2003 6:42 PM EDT

I have the Giraffe Transformer.

His name is Longrack, the 2nd in command in the Japanese Beast Wars Neo series.

He isn’t all that great though.

Now Big Convoy, his commander? He kicks ass. Removable Matrix of Leadership in his chest, and he turns into a friggin wooly mammoth..

Posted by Bloodcat @ 05/01/2003 6:48 PM EDT

Who cares about your precious video games. There weren’t any #$%@ing Legos in there either! The closest thing in there was Construx. And not even the standard versatile Construx, but some quasi-military version that looked like crap. Construx? C’mon people. They were ok, but paled in comparison to the epic grandeur of my favorite Lego space sets. Please tell me that somebody else around here also has a Lego fetish.

Posted by NutfuZ @ 05/01/2003 7:03 PM EDT

Mr T. goes after Best Buy
http://www.daytondailynews.com...ontent/news/daily/0501mrt.html

Posted by Murdoch @ 05/01/2003 7:37 PM EDT

I always knew Mr. T’s name was Laurence, but who spells it like that? Weird. Or, to follow T’s spelling lead, Ueird.

Posted by thanks for the scoop, Murdoch. BUT I AIN'T GETTIN' ON NO DAMN PLANE! @ 05/01/2003 8:00 PM EDT

WOW been a few months since i have said anything. HOpe everyone is doing well. That was a really good article. SOme of the toys brought some funny stories back to my head. ALso when the VCR games my fav one was about Comerical crazies..

Posted by Sailor Ike @ 05/01/2003 8:16 PM EDT

I’ve got that commercial crazies game, just watched it a while ago lots of great commercials on there.

Posted by Patrick N @ 05/01/2003 9:39 PM EDT

Singing: "I don’t wanna grow up, I’m an X and E kid, Matt shows me all the junk I used to play with… I don’t wanna grow up cause if I did, I wouldn’t be an X and E kid!" Blasted jingles, LoL!

Posted by BotchieGulpe @ 05/01/2003 9:41 PM EDT

err, yes Geek…I’ve had the same burning question for awhile now…I do believe we are thinking of the same exact thing….mmm, the boulders that transformed into dinosaur-esque monsters, the little plastic trolls brightly colored….my kingdom for an answer….

Posted by kpants @ 05/02/2003 3:43 AM EDT

I finally got the new Teela…the world is at peace…FOR NOW! (duuh nuuh nuuuuh) (Roll credits)

Posted by kennef @ 05/02/2003 10:09 AM EDT

Matt. I still have not recieved my Crude Drawing that i purchased from you. I am sad.

Posted by wack0 @ 05/02/2003 10:24 AM EDT

I have to say I’m disappointed that only one person has commented on the Robotix set that was in there. Robotix were GREAT toys, as long as you weren’t too abusive to them. Of course, most kids like to smash their toys for no apparent reason, so I can see why many people wouldn’t remember Robotix. They probably would have lasted 15 minutes for most kids. I really loved mine though. Who wouldn’t like making motorized walking mechanical monsters that were (sort of) remote controlled? They were like Legos, since you could build many different configurations, and they were like Transformers in that they were giant robots. The best of both worlds!

Posted by Spaz307 @ 05/02/2003 11:26 AM EDT

How fun…but I can’t believe nobody remembers Blinkins! I lived in terror of that freakin’ frog for at least a month.

Sean, furskins freak me out too, it’s not just you. "What are you doing in there Tommy?" "Nothing Mom, just playing with my furskin!" A little much for me.

I recently ran across an old Teddy Ruxpin video that I wish you all could see…Teddy, Grubby, Gimmick, Tweeg, root stew and the almighty airship in a live-action adventure not to be missed! You haven’t lived until you see that big purple thing showering in Rainbow Falls!!

Posted by Queen of Ill Repute @ 05/02/2003 11:40 AM EDT

Is anyone else disturbed by a toy line called "furskins"? I mean, there is only one word in the English language that sounds close to that, and it isn’t one you normally think of as a plaything for children. Eww.

Also, this seems like one of those places that people might care–I was in a Walmart this evening, and picked up a Scooby-Doo "mystery solving crew" for 3 bucks (down from $7, down from $20!)! That’s 5 figures, including Daphne (YES!) and best of all, a window box shaped like the van, easily worth $10 on its own! And that’s 3 bucks Canadian. That’s like fifty cents US.

The only reason I knew about them was the store was filled people carrying them, and I really doubt that many people are into Scoob and the gang. Hell. I’m not, but what a deal!

Posted by Sean @ 05/02/2003 12:19 PM EDT

Nutfuz I love my legos I want the mindstorm set. Ohh legos those were the best I wish they would do some more pirate ship kits I had those and I loved them.

Molten No they weren’t Motu toys odds are it is a pretty obscure toy line but it is just something that is driving me insane the little goblins that they ate were about an inch tall each God some one help me I am losing sleep over some toys I had over 10 years ago.

Posted by Geek @ 05/02/2003 12:24 PM EDT

"I mean, there is only one word in the English language that sounds close to that, and it isn’t one you normally think of as a plaything for children."

Jerkins?

Posted by Molten @ 05/02/2003 12:38 PM EDT

That Catalog is for the area I live in (Charlotte, NC), and the store on Independence Blvd is still there. I remember getting this catalog

My sister and I actually got the "Woodmaster Solid Wood" toybox on the last page for christmas that year. I know I had the Alfie II, but I think I got it a couple of years before this catalog came out. That and the Teddy Ruxpin caused my family to ban "Talking Toys" from coming into the house and taking the batteries of ones that already were there.

The Independence Blvd store is the only Toys R Us in town that hasn’t moved 100 times in search of the perfect location. But we all really wish it would. Buying toys from there always involved a trip across town into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on one of the most dangerous streets to a store that looked like an evil Circus/Castle on a hill in a sea of parking lot filled with large birds that crapped on everything that stopped moving for a millisecond. Once you passed through the double doors and went around the maze of seasonal toys, you’d make it into the dark, dirty confines of the store.

I swear those blackmarket stalls in Sci-Fi movies are based on the Toys R Us electronics department. There was no lighting except in the Display cases.

The Circuit City in the same shopping center is set up the same way. The computer section in that store is in what I swear used to be a men’s room.

Posted by Aristan @ 05/02/2003 12:48 PM EDT

Ah, the Fluppy Dogs, the Fisher Price tape recorder, the Little People Main Street set. So many memories…

But the main memory this brought back was the Christmas all I wanted was the She-Ra crystal castle…but I didn’t get it. Imagine my jealousy when I found out my cousin had gotten it this year. Grrrr…

Anyway, thanks, Matt for this article! Nothing else has brought back so much to me!

Posted by Erin @ 05/02/2003 2:54 PM EDT

i had the purple sweet secrets…

and the magic vaccum WAS magic. not only did the dustballs fly around, it lit up!

Posted by Cara @ 05/02/2003 9:08 PM EDT

Great article, Matt. But why no coverage (and I mean AT ALL) of the semi-popular mid-90’s toy fad Pauly Shore’s "My Buuuuuuu-ddy" doll?

Posted by Kev @ 05/03/2003 9:33 AM EDT

Great article, Matt. That was pure magic. Looks like you skipped the same pages as a kid that I always skipped. Actually, those pages always made me kinda sad, because I knew the good stuff what pretty much done.

Posted by Lothian @ 05/05/2003 12:32 PM EDT

Erm… just wanted to point out that, if this catalogue was published in November 1986, then it came *after* the Transformers movie was released in North American theatres (August 8th, 1986), so it really doesn’t explain the lack of Transformers toys in the catalogue… weird.

In Canada, or, at least Montreal, we didn’t get Toys R’ Us until 1986, so, when I was a kid, my book of Christmas dreams was the Consumers Distributing catalogue, this big, thick book we received around September each year that had some 40-50 odd pages of toys alone… though this represented everything in the store and not just select items, since Consumers Distributing was this weird sort of store where, to purchase an item, you had to fill out a little slip of paper and then hand it in at the counter (you couldn’t handle the merchandies). It went defunct in 1996.

Posted by Steve Brandon @ 05/07/2003 4:25 AM EDT

Damn, this article took me back. My sisters and I had about half the She-Ra stuff, and we wanted the castle so bad we could taste it. We had Sweet Secrets, too. I once tried to "hypnotize" my sister with a Sweet Secret during a car trip to make her act less annoying. She pretended it worked for about ten minutes.

Posted by starwenn @ 08/16/2003 11:03 PM EDT

One of my favorite things about the TRU Catalog, is it’s efforts to enforce ‘equality’

if you look close enough, there’s always one retarded kid, and one wheelchair bound kid….

and sometimes you can score a double-whammy by having a retarded kid on crutches…..

ahh, TRU, your utopia is one we aspire to…..

I think I once saw the Quadruple-Hat-Trick of fucked up kids in one of the old catalogs too…….

a black retarded girl on crutches…

she’s black, she’s retarded, she’s on crutches, and she’s a girl….

I bet TRU had a hard time letting her contract go….without the NAACP, and the ACLU suing their collective asses off!

Posted by Tai @ 02/17/2004 12:44 PM EST

Geek & kpants:

I had a green one that looked kindof like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. There was a black one too, and I think it was more of a monster-devil(maybe) face. I remember, because my mom wouldn’t let us get that one. I’m glad there are two other people besides me who remember this thing.

Posted by Seeth_Ransome @ 09/05/2006 3:39 PM EDT

Geek & kpants:Seeth_Ransome
I don’t know if you guys are still checking this blog, or still looking for the answer , but the name of the toyline is “Rocks and Bugs and Things” This nearly drove me insane but I managed to finally get the name after scouring the web. Hope I helped.

Posted by ghostbuggy @ 07/02/2007 1:37 PM EDT

i liked working in toy r us it was fun looking at kidz play with toys
it brings back memories of toys (horrible toys!)

Posted by aoife(eefa) @ 12/02/2008 3:41 AM EST

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