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12/11/2008: KB, Khristmas, Krispies.

The fact that it’s already December 10th tells me that the season is moving much too fast, but on the bright side, there are still fifteen days left. Twenty if you count all the way through New Year’s. For the sake of five extra days, I will.

Tonight is egg nog night. If you think you recognize the cup that holds my egg nog, you’re probably right. Click here to verify. I’m still mulling over which Christmas movie will mesh best with this goblet full of creamy joy, but I guess it doesn’t matter much since I’ve already begun drinking the nog and am certain to pass out ten minutes after hitting the play button.

Was really, really sad to hear the news about KB Toys shutting down. I guess it isn’t surprising. KB has been struggling for years, and it never managed to be the “premiere” destination for…well, anything. Still, the loss of one of the only toy store chains that randomly pops up in shopping malls is a nasty hit, especially for those of us who grew up with the former “Kay Bee” and felt some odd, alien form of kinship with it.

I could do a whole post on Kay Bee/KB memories, but I’m not that ambitious. Instead, you only get one. I actually wrote about this in an ancient article, but I think I’m allowed to tell the same story twice in a seven year period.

I call it: “The Wingnut and Scumbug Incident.”

Sixth grade. I was a Ninja Turtles toy addict, and I’d managed to collect every single action figure in the first few “waves.” After a drought that felt like centuries, Playmates finally unveiled four new figures: Muckman, Mondo Gecko, Wingnut and Scumbug. They were impossible to find, and I say this will all confidence because I searched for them every single day.

I eventually located Muckman, but it would be several weeks before I spotted any of the others. (Forget about Mondo Gecko — that was like trying to track down Osama.) One day, I went to the mall with my sister, who left me in KB to go shopping for clothes or some other bullshit.

I blasted over to the Ninja Turtles aisle with cautious hope, and couldn’t believe what I saw. Wingnut and Scumbug. Finding one of the new TMNT figures was a legendary experience, but finding two at the same time? I knew the Lord chose me.

Anyway, I only had a few dollars. Enough to buy one figure, but not both. The line at the store was growing rapidly, and the beads of sweat tripled by the second as I struggled to choose which figure to go home with. Ultimately, I decided that I couldn’t leave with just one, and waited for my sister to return, thinking she’d front me the money for the second figure. I stood there holding Wingnut and Scumbug for thirty minutes, easy.

When my sister returned, she said the line was way too long, reprimanded me for being greedy, and made me leave without getting either action figure. It was the most awful experience anyone has ever had, alive or dead.

Au revoir, KB Toys. You will be remembered. Especially if you have awesome liquidation sales before you go.

I’m about halfway done getting my family’s five thousand children their Christmas presents. Most of them wanted Wii games, which is terrific if you’re looking to spend fifty fucking dollars a pop on Christmas presents for 800 kids. Seriously…nobody likes crayons anymore?

Nah, the truth is, I could’ve easily chose less-pricey gifts if I dug through their Amazon lists a little heavier, but I pride myself on giving out good Christmas presents. I think I’d need therapy if I ever saw a kid make a pissy face after opening something I wrapped for them.

I also like to think that I’m pretty good at figuring out what kids really want, because if you’ve ever gone through a child’s Amazon wishlist, you’ll agree that they get a little trigger happy and add random crap that they couldn’t possibly be seriously interested in.

Case in point: One of my nephews had one of those “Live Butterfly Garden” kits on his wishlist. I’m all for encouraging an interest in the animal kingdom, but 10 to 1, that thing would sit unopened at the top of his bedroom closet from Christmas morning until the day he leaves for college. And then someone will throw it away. At least, that’s how I’ve envisioned it happening in the screenplay I’ve been writing based on this hypothetical event. I’ve already sent feelers out to Danny Elfman to handle the score.

Are these new? I’m sure they’re not, but I like to consider everything I find at the store for review purposes as brand new. It’s a problem I have.

New or not, they are a tribute to Christmas, and they deserve archiving. From Kellogg’s, it’s boxes of Rice Krispies Treats with red and green bits mixed in. Holiday Krispies Treats! While it’s true that homemade Rice Krispies Treats are six trillion times better than the pre-prepared storebought variety, it’s also true that few of us will bother to make them without the encouragement of some grade school bake sale charity drive flyer. I’m in no position to receive such a flyer, so these will do just fine.

The Advent Calendar has been updated for December 10th. December 10th was yesterday. I did good!!


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 166 comments

Bill, I’m just a hundred miles north-northwest of you but so far it looks like we’re just being missed. There’s 8 inches on the ground from yesterday’s snow, tho.

Ghosted by Moony @ 12/13/2008 8:05 PM EST

no snow here in philly, is rained alot the last couple of days though

Ghosted by pdc @ 12/13/2008 8:23 PM EST

Moony, we got nailed. But I live pretty high on a mountain so there is a big difference between where I am and Coeur D’alene that is only about 15 miles away.

Ghosted by Bill @ 12/13/2008 8:34 PM EST

When I was really little, like three or four, it snowed here in northern Florida. Since I was so young I held on for a few years to the hope each year that maaaybe it would snow again, but by the time I was 10 or so I realized the one snow was a freak thing and gave up hope. But Thursday’s snowfall in New Orleans, just a few hundred miles west of here, has renewed my hope. I’m going to be watching the weather reports VERY closely this winter.

On an unrelated note, has anyone else noticed that other websites and blogs are kind of dead this time of year? Most of the blogs and LJ comms that I read have been really sparse for the last few weeks. I’m glad X-E is a Christmas playground or I’d snap. No blogs and no LJ make Jazzy something something :/

Ghosted by jazzy @ 12/13/2008 8:46 PM EST

anyone watching its a wonderful life tonight?

Ghosted by pdc @ 12/13/2008 8:48 PM EST

pdc
Nope, I’m continuing my annual tradition of watching The Lord of the Rings at Christmastime by watching The Two Towers tonight. As soon as the Miser Brother’s special is over, that is!

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 12/13/2008 8:57 PM EST

Oh, KB. I’m from Pittsfield and the KB HQ was right down the street from my first job. My first design teacher used to work for them, and she taught me a lot. They had a light up map with pinpoints for every one of their stores in the USA. There were a lot of lights on that map back in 2001.

Very sad to see them go, and another hit for the home team.

Ghosted by Dan V @ 12/13/2008 9:07 PM EST

I had Mondo Gecko. I had no idea he was so rare.

Ghosted by Pat Riot @ 12/14/2008 12:19 AM EST

My KB memory. Ah, Black Friday,

For toy geeks, it’s often a day where new stuff is on the shelves. On Black Friday in 1995, Bob and I got up super early to hit the stores. Toys R Us opened at 7 am, and we were there. But they didn’t have what we wanted. What we wanted: In anticipation of the Special Editions of the original Star Wars trilogy coming out, new Star Wars figures were being made for the first time in twenty years. The first wave of the new figures was just kicking around that autumn, and the hard ones to find were 3PO and Princess Leia. Bob wanted the princess and I wanted the droid.

So we headed next door to the Swansea Mall, which was open to the public before the stores lifted their security gates. Sure enough, right on the other side of the gate to Kay Bee Toy and Hobby was a display of Star Wars figs, and right in the front was a 3PO and a Leia. The store wouldn’t open for another 45 minutes, so Bob and I used the time to head to the nearby Walmart in Seekonk.

Walmart was disappointing, but worse than that, when we got back to Kay Bee there was a big ol’ nerd parked right on the other side of the gate from the SW rack. Damn! This was a pretty typical example of our ilk: about 300 pounds of misfit stuffed into an army jacket that I’m sure hung on a hook in his parents’ basement. I sidled up next to him as best I could and stood silently in the gathering crowd, poised like a gunslinger for when it was time to make my move. Soon a noisy guy showed up behind me, going “maaaan, look at all the people. Hey, what are you trying to get? What about you? How about you, dude?” The big nerd reluctantly spoke up: “oh, 3PO, the Princess…the hard-to-get ones.” I grinned to myself. He had broken his poker face facade, clearly he had tipped his advantage. I set my gaze ahead and waited.

During all this I was assuming that when go time came, an employee would come up to the gate and turn a key on the floor, saying “let’s take it easy people.” But no. They stayed behind the counter and pressed a button somewhere. Suddenly the gate was rising past the toes of my boots. I made a split-second calculation: clearly I’d surrendered all dignity by just being here this early in the morning, I might as well get what I came for. When the gate was about two feet high, I flattened and zipped underneath it. Grab! 3PO in one hand. Grab! Princess Leia in the other. Fwoosh! Suddenly I was in the middle of a tight sea of people, clawing at the rack. I turned around and looked at Bob, triumphantly holding the two figs above the scrambling mass around me. His huge grin reflected the one I felt on my own face. Success! Blissful success.

I estimated I had two or three whole seconds with the rack to myself. On the way out, I stopped and got myself an R2D2, a fig that had been out for a while and was not hard to get. The noisy guy was still there, talking, and I heard him say “man, that first guy just flew!” Bob and I rode that high for the rest of the holiday, and in a way we’re still riding it.

This has become my signature story of just how committed a nerd I am.

Ghosted by Jeff W. @ 12/14/2008 10:19 AM EST

jazzy: Go crazy?

Ghosted by Teddy Ray @ 12/14/2008 3:02 PM EST

I don’t think it’s a real surprise that the KB is going out of business because every once in a while I saw a closing store even before this big announcement. I didn’t find much use for it except for one time when I got the two McKenzie Brothers figures for a total of $10 with their accessories and both halves of their Great White North set.

Linens n Things going out of business was no surprise either because the place didn’t have much selection when compared with Bed Bath and Beyond. Plus they didn’t send me the occasional 10-20% off coupon that BB&B sends me. At least I got some storage bins for 50% off at Linens n Things.

Ghosted by mjf7583 @ 12/15/2008 8:51 PM EST

I didn’t go to KB Toys much as a kid since it was in the mall and we had a mega Toys ‘R’ Us across the street. I do have one fond/weird memory there though. LJN WWF figures had just started coming out and were impossible to find. I ended up getting a 2 pack of The British Bulldogs (now very rare) and was as happy as could be. On the way home the radio reported that Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik were arrested for possession of drugs. I was baffled. Why in the world would Hacksaw be in the same car with the likes of the Iron Sheik!? My childhood died a little that day…

Ghosted by Daniel @ 12/17/2008 4:27 PM EST

I loved Kay Bee Toys so much as a kid. I made most of my important purchases there–Ninja Turtles, various iterations of Spiderman and the X-Men, Mighty Max, Exo Squad, the list goes on and on.

Nowadays when I speak fondly of it, my peers insist it was an overpriced scam-fest of a store. Of course, they probably don’t have nearly as many iconic, perfect memories of the place as I do, but still, I secretly despise them a little bit for their verbal abuse of my favorite toy store.

Ghosted by Scott @ 12/19/2008 4:10 AM EST

Also, now that I think about it, I owned all of the figures you mentioned except for Scumbug. Even the prized Mondo Gecko! I guess my parents were pretty vigilant hunters.

I remember that my mom bought me Muckman after I begged for it, but told me I had to wait until my Birthday to actually own him. Somehow, I convinced her to leave me alone with the figure for a bit because I wanted to “look” at it. Then, in stereotypical cartoonish fashion, I slowly began “picking” at the packaging. Just a little rip here and there. Finally, I could restrain myself no longer, and tore him from his plastic prison. It was such a sweet day. He was an awesomely grotesque figure, and I had a great time playing with him. When later confronted about this, I tried to make a lame excuse about opening him because I wanted to see how his slime-drooling action feature worked. I got grounded for a week.

Ghosted by Scott @ 12/19/2008 4:30 AM EST

Jeff W, that was a great story lol… I know Im late but my best memories of KayBee was when I was super into WWF around 93, I remember finding super old figures I never seen anywhere else, even the tag team packs with the Rockers and Demolition and once I remember finding the Macho “King” Randy Savage figure there and my mom absolutely refused to buy it for me, I actually hid it somewhere inside the store by some stuffed toys and to my surprise about 2 weeks later, it was actually still there! Talk about luck. I almost crapped in my pants. Only at KayBee. Rest in Peace. You will be missed.

Ghosted by TommyG @ 01/04/2009 7:01 PM EST

I remember finding Ray Fillet, the color changing sting ray Ninja Turtle toy. That was so fucking cool, because you could only find him at Toy’s R Us. I lived in a small town, so we never had a TRU. I always remember our Kay-Bee having the entry podium for the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run Contest. I never won. So I had this conspiracy theory that only Florida kids won the contest, since Nickelodeon Studios was in Orlando.

Ghosted by Joe @ 01/10/2009 1:39 PM EST

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