Not sure how they stayed in business this long. Toys "R" Us is next!

That's crazy. For a while, KB Toys was the only toy shop in town. It was in the mall. If it closes, then there's no real "toy shop" in my hometown, as Toys R Us already bit the dust.

I walked into a KB just a few days ago to relive some memories. I was shocked, everything was cheap garbage from China. There was nothing in that store I could see that I would have found interesting when I was a child.

No wonder kids only play video games now which KB didn't even carry.

@lalaland13: Walmart has pretty much beaten down the mall toy store along with the local independent toy store for generic toy purchases. Any toy store surviving has high end toys or other lines helping it keep afloat.

If memory serves, this is the umpteenth time KB has flirted with death. I seem to recall store closings, bankruptcies, closeout sales, and the like over the years, and the zombie toy store kept shambling along. I was always mystified as to how it could stay in business, sort of like Radio Shack.

@meekrobe: I remember roaming about it as a child as well. Now it's likely just depressed and cheap. Kind of like the adult version of me, come to think of it.

KB Toys: Your Childhood Has Been Liquidated.

@Mfalconieri: As a minor toy collector (I'm not at all hardcore) I loved Kay-Bee since they never really wipe their inventory. They'll hold onto items and just slap lower and lower price tags on it until they sell. I've scored a number of Transformers on the cheap that way, usually ones I missed when they originally came out, cause I wasn't paying attention or didn't have the money at the time.

@econobiker: Walmart has a crappy plush selection. That's one thing that keeps me going to smaller toy stores.

Another one falls at the hands of Wal-Mart.

KayBee has always been a fun place to go. Many times I would score great deals on clearance items. Several years ago, I bought 4 Lazer Tag pistol/target vest sets for like $10 each!!!

@lalaland13: too true.

I feel like their products trailed off to target only sheltered kids that find barbie and cheap plastic swords entertaining.

Don't blame Wal-Mart. People walk through the doors and choose where to buy their Chinese crap.

@AtomicPlayboy:
Indeed, I agree...the very few KB's I remember are long gone in my hood. The greatest anomaly is Radio Shack, how the heck do they do it ? Who even buys from that place...severely overpriced junk. You Go Girl (R.S.)

ok, I really like KB....cheap cheap clearance and since everyone always seemed to forget about it because of TOYS R US, you could usually score stuff there.

RIP KB...I just did a black friday, at midnight line thing this year. It was always my BF goto store!

KB Toys was my favorite job ever. You got to work with toys, giving you that nostalgic feel, and at the time for me the pay was good. It was only a temporary job, but it was still a lot of fun.

Most of the locations near me closed 4-5 years ago. Occasionally I could find something interesting in there, but it was definitely a shell of what it once was. Walk into a K-B 25 years ago, and they had an aisle of plastic model kits, model rockets, and model trains. On the other side of the store, video game cartridges. And of course, toys. The prices were rarely the lowest around, but they had a better selection and variety than anything outside of a big toy store like Toys R Us or Children's Palace, and they were in the mall. It was a great refuge on my mom and aunt's all-day shopping marathons when they would spend 2-3 hours each at JC Penney, Sears, and Montgomery Ward.

When I was a kid, most of the toys were part of a longstanding franchise: GI Joe, Barbie, He-Man, or even short-lived ones like MASK or Voltron. For years you could count on being able to drop in and find something you didn't have, and at a reasonable price--even on your small allowance.

But now the stores are 50% random Chinese crap, 50% short-term promotion crap (usually from some movie). And even if it is a Batman toy, they seem to re-release new series with each new movie, and the compatibility (by scale) is usually lost in the process.

When I was a kid, nothing got me into the toy store quicker than the prospect of a new GI Joe man for $2.79 (and my mom was cool with the low price). Or even a small vehicle for under $15. Now it seems like the figures themselves are $15, which makes parents less likely to give into the kids' whims on the spot. And when you don't offer whimsical and longstanding "franchised" toy choices, I don't see your business succeeding.

My favorite were these Super Soaker brand nerf styled dart guns I got from a KB outlet. You pumped them to build up pressure to shoot the darts. You could get them to shoot through glass :-D Made awesome welts too during dart gun wars. Completely owned actual nerf gun users.

Toys today are crap. If I want to shop for a kid, I'm going to a store where I can buy a wooden yo-yo. If the kid isn't happy with a wooden yo-yo, maybe they don't deserve to be happy.

@AtomicPlayboy: Isn't Radio Shack now in decent shape since they're selling a lot of cellphones now?

Ho Ho Ho!

The KB's around here have stayed dirty for years. I never thought of it when shopping for toys. If we saw one in the mall, we would walk in, but very rarely buy anything. The front of the store was always cluttered with crap. I was in one just a few weeks ago that had Game Cube game on SALE for $40+. Not just Mario/Luigi stuff either.

@The Name's Ash78, Housewares: ...MASK...

You sir, are a men among men for knowing what MASK was.

KB always seemed kind of pricey to me (probably because of mall rents), but they do have an awesome selection. I'm no economist, but 20% seems like a modest decline to cause a business to go bankrupt. If we were talking 50% or 60%, I'd definitely understand. There must be more to this story...

time to start making your own toys out of Popsicle sticks, googly eyes and glue like we did in the 70's.

@Skunky: My wife and I have noticed that Target's toy prices have been cheaper than Wal-Mart's this holiday season. Nice

The store near me pulled their gift cards yesterday. About two weeks ago they told their employees, "We're not closing"

Liars.

Didn't KB Toys already go bankrupt years ago? All the ones around here have long since closed.

Ugh. I just bought some disney princess stuff there for my neice yesterday (no discount... blah >_<) . I bet it will be 50% off by Monday.

I has a sad.

@AtomicPlayboy: Radio Shack already went out of business in Canada a few years ago. Bought up by Circuit City and renamed "The Source". Hmmm...

@AtomicPlayboy: I'd say they're done with flirting and have moved on to "presenting."

@Mistrez_Mish: Aw, don't has a sad. It's more likely that on Monday the price will be jacked up 300%, then "discounted" 50% from that. You probably got the better deal.

Interesting. KB Toys starts to downgrade its stock to marked-up plastic generics, while at the same time starts its decline to bankruptcy. It comes out the other side miraculously still alive, then continues the exact same business model. Declines back into bankruptcy again.

How many stores have you seen that follow this pattern? Fail, come back from bankruptcy, neglect to change, fail again.

@CaraKlilyn: correct, or nowadays, people choose to never walk through the doors and get the stuff with a click of a button. (plus 6.95 shipping and handling)

@Skunky: i used to work there and really enjoyed that practice when it came to getting old barbies and 'Alien' action figures for my barbie art. [seen in icon photo - demon lilith barbie with horns from the 'bull alien' toy]

the "3/$5" bin + employee discount was my special shopping friend....

we once upon a time discovered overnight that The Tick toys were discontinued overnight and clearanced out. i freely admit to holding a few things back [they never were a big seller] when i was repricing them down to 17 cents apiece:

[www.flickr.com]

@Mistrez_Mish: Don't worry, the liquidators will mark it back up to full price and then some. You probably bought at just the right time.

@xAnarChisTx: did you ever get to be a toy demonstrator and enamor kids of the toys so much they had a tantrum if their parents tried to leave without buying it? *sigh* - that was my favorite part of the job.
why yes, i AM evil, why do you ask?

@zentex: I still have one of the toys floating around in all my crap, err I mean "collectibles" that I have boxed up.

@zentex:

My question was always: if they're working overtime fighting crime, do they get time-and-a-half?

Wow this is surprising, every time I went in there prices ON AVERAGE were 10$ HIGHER on every single toy I looked at than in other stores. A toy typically priced 9.99 would be 17.99 at KB, etc. Toys R Us and Amazon had them beat by a long shot. Anyone who shopped at this store had to be a complete moron or VERY VERY desperate for a toy.

@The Name's Ash78, Housewares:
I recall the same fond experience. But KB hasn't been a decent toy store for more than 10 years, and it's not just because I'm older.

Not to be pedantic about it, but they're not going into Chapter 11 - they're likely going into Chapter 7. Under Chapter 11, the company reorganizes, sheds debt, restructures contracts, etc., and then reemerges. Under Chapter 7, the company liquidates: sell the inventory, sell the furniture, pay whatever you get for it to the creditors, and everybody goes home.

@zentex: I am a girl and I was a huge fan of MASK when I was a kid!

@josephbloseph: oooh, wooden yo-yo's on sale!
[www.duluthtrading.com]
as long as all the brick and mortar stores are closing anyway, why not get your wooden yo-yo's online?
that was sarcasm - i often miss being able to go into a store that sells only toys and not also candy, dog food, diapers, lingerie and shoes. i'm about 25 miles from a toy store

@zentex: I have several MASK toys, I think I have the little dune buggy that converts into some kind of fighter-plane-thing. Good times.

Now, what about GO-BOTS! And if you know about them from the reference in Clerks (was it the cartoon? one of the movies?), it doesn't count. :)

I'm going to miss their poorly organized, highly overpriced stores.

@ZenMasterKel: Yeah, I was hoping my viewpoint was objective, and not just a change in perspective with the passage of time. Kids really are at the leading edge of our overconsumption and "planned obsolescence" culture.

I was just in KB two nights ago and they wanted more for a used copy of Halo 3 than Amazon wants for a brand new copy.

The only things we ever bought there were when a relative gave my daughter a Christmas gift that we returned for store credit.

Their prices really aren't competitive with anyone.

@AtomicPlayboy: Yeah, I swear I thought they went out of business a couple years ago.